


Sounds Like Truth and Feels Like Courage

by sprinkles888



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 2019 Supernatural Gencest Bang, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic Within A Larger Fic, Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Forehead Kisses, Gen, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, Knitting, Magic, Magical Tattoos, Mental Health Issues, Mentions of Suicide, Mild Language, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Relationships, Platonic Soulmates, References to Addiction, References to Queer Eye, Sharing a Bed, Soul Magic, Soulmates Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Temporary Character Death, Trauma, gencest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-13 03:27:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 30,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18460505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sprinkles888/pseuds/sprinkles888
Summary: Turns out that the Men of Letters had a way to perform magic on the regular without the messiness of witchcraft.All they need for it is a pair of soulmates, a couple of rings from the bunker, and a willingness to spend time platonically touching. And, well, the Winchesters are already sitting at two out of three…(In which Sam and Dean cuddle, spend time being emotionally vulnerable, mend relationships, learn just how powerful their souls are, find power in memories, watch way too much Netflix, and become targets of an organized group of monsters set on killing them.)





	1. Comfortable

**Author's Note:**

> For Gencest Bang 2019
> 
> OKAY holy cow, I have to shriek about the artist I got to work with for this bang, [quickreaver](http://quickreaver.tumblr.com/) is the loveliest, patient-est person ever and I simply cannot handle how amazing the art she created is. You can see the art post [HERE](http://quickreaver.tumblr.com/post/184214370209/art-for-this-years-gencestbang-where-i-got-to), go love it as much as I do, because holy cow do I love it.
> 
> Thank you to my lovely beta, and wonderful friend Kenz, who puts up with my passion for spn, even though she doesn't watch the show (don't worry, someday I'll get her to watch all . . . fifteen seasons). Also bless her for late-night last-minute beta sessions.
> 
> And of course, thanks to the mods and other participants for the bang! I love the passion everyone has and can't wait to enjoy all of the creations:D.
> 
>  **IMPORTANT NOTE:** Mind the tags please, there's some dark stuff hidden (or, uh, no so hidden) in all the cuddle-fest.
> 
> Semi-important note: this fic takes place in an abstract divergence from like s12 ish where none of the things happen. cool? cool.
> 
> Not too important note: MAGICAL BUNKER MAGICAL BUNKER MAGICAL BUNKER MAGICAL—

_“Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren't always comfortable, but they're never weakness.”—Brene Brown_

Like an unfortunate amount of things in Sam Winchester’s life, the act of running is polluted by bad memories.

It’s training with dad and fleeing monsters and the metaphorical aspect of turning his back on people all wrapped up in a package that also doubles as exercise he actually enjoys. It’s a damned conundrum.

But hey, it makes him feel better. It works.

Outside the bunker it’s pouring buckets—enough to make the ground muddy down to the three-inch mark—and that’s the only reason Sam’s running the halls inside (it’s not because the rain weighs him down and freezes his bones and sends his heart racing, it’s not). At least in the bunker he’s not at risk of losing his shoes in the floor. Well, probably. Maybe.

He takes the turn through the war room and barrels down the other hallway. Dean’s figure, slumped over a collection of guns that he’s in the process of cleaning, is in the corner of his vision for a moment before brick blocks him from sight. Sam follows the curve of the hallway, down into the guts of the bunker, past the doors for all the bedrooms and several storage rooms. Sam sucks in breath after breath, pushing.

Running.

He takes the curve of the hallway a little faster than he should, and the treads on his shoes have been worn down so much that he slips, just a bit. He catches himself on the wall and keeps going.

Jumps a couple steps, hits just hard enough that his knees complain, runs down a dead end, slows and twists, skids just enough that his heels bump up against the door at the end and he needs to crouch and press his fingers to the floor so he can take off again.

Back up the steps, he takes a left, pushing off the wall to bounce back from the sharp turn. He comes to the four-way, takes another left, and follows the curve around until he can take a right and end up back at the same spot.

He tells himself that it’s just good practice for the hunt, tells himself that running the halls like this is prepping (even though he only does his erratic run in the bunker, only when he’s trapped in those halls and it feels like something’s after him, someone with a hammer and a vengeance and—).

When he hits more stairs, he launches up them, and on the last one his shoes slip out from under him. He shouts in alarm as he trips and reaches out his hands to catch himself. His palms and knees hit first and momentum propels him forward just a bit. He takes a second, chest heaving, just to hold himself there.

“Sam?” Dean’s voice calls, echoing through the halls (and he doesn’t flinch, he doesn’t), “You okay?”

“Fine,” He yells back, shifting his weight to get off of his hands. He kneels back and glances at his palms. Scraped up and bleeding just a little. When he pulls himself upright, he pulls up the legs of his running pants and sees that his knees are the same story. He sighs and puts a hand up against the wall to brace himself for a moment.

Then the wall shifts under his hand and he almost goes toppling over again.

Blinking, Sam steps back.

A grating sound fills the air as brick and mortar scrape across the ground, the wall splitting in two to reveal a new hallway. One by one, lights flicker on down the corridor, and a clunk, followed by a humming, indicates that the electricity and plumbing are kicking into gear.

“Sa-am?” Dean yells again, closer and more concerned.

“I’m fine!” He yells back, hesitantly taking a step away from the new doorway.

“What was that?” Dean questions, still closer.

“Uh,” Sam, says, licking his thumb to start rubbing at the blood on his hands, “secret passage?”

Dean turns a corner and comes into view, gun in hand. Once he spots Sam, he relaxes, moving to tuck the gun behind his back. He raises an eyebrow at Sam who gestures helplessly at the entrance, née wall.

“Huh,” Dean says, blinking, “that wasn’t there before.”

Sam rolls his eyes, “Yeah, no, duh.”

Dean pulls a face in Sam’s direction and steps close enough to peer down the hallway, then turns around and grins, “Well, Short Round, ready to look for fortune and glory?”

“You _wish_ you were as cool as Indy,” Sam says, scowling, as he pushes past Dean.

“You wish _you_ were as cool as Indy,” Dean replies, voice fading as he realizes that it’s not a particularly good comeback. Sam ignores him.

The hallway stretches out in a straight line, a door at the end marking a dead end.

“This doesn’t make sense,” Dean says, stepping back out of the hall to peer around the corner, “Shouldn’t the kitchen be here?”

Sam thinks about it, trying to place the layout of the bunker on top of where they are.

“Uh, yeah. Think so?” It doesn’t really make sense.

Dean walks back in, nudging Sam aside as he glances back down the hall. With a shrug, Dean opens a door and looks briefly inside.

“Books,” he says, shutting the door again and immediately moving to the next one on the left.

Sam, intrigued, glances at the door number. Something sparks in his brain and he breathes out, “Oh.”

Moving to the closest door on the right, he looks at the number and a grin pulls at the side of his mouth.

He opens the door, flicks a massive light switch, and heads inside.

“More books,” Dean says, slamming shut another door.

“Hey,” Sam calls, walking past a writing desk with a typewriter sitting precariously balanced on the edge, “You remember when I was trying to find that room that one guy referenced in the back of that journal?”

“Yeah,” Dean says, followed by an, “Oh, hey, cool,” as the sound of another door opening hits Sam’s ears.

“No wonder I couldn’t find it,” Sam says, “it was right here.” He stops in-between two bookshelves and skims the visible titles of the books on them.

“We’ve got a woodshop,” Dean says in response, voice muffled by the walls between them.

Sam trails a finger along the spine of a book without a title absentmindedly and feels a little shiver run down his back. He glances at the things around it, marking its place in his mind as he turns to head back out of the room, turning out the lights and closing the door.

Several somethings go clattering to the ground and Sam flinches before heading toward it. He leans his head into the room Dean’s in and is greeted by the sight of Dean shoving tools back into a leather bag that must have fallen to the floor.

“Cool,” Sam says, glancing around at the ancient equipment and the stacks of wood lying haphazardly around the place.

Dean glances up and nods, smiling in the way that shows off his wrinkles.

One more scan of the room and Sam moves on to the next. Several warning signs gleam at him as he turns on the light, and he carefully moves back.

“Cursed object storage,” he hollers in Dean’s direction before turning the light off and closing the door. That’s not something he particularly wants to tackle today.

The next door is farther down, and he passes two doors on Dean’s side of the hall before he pulls back and asks himself why it’s Dean’s side of the hall. Almost like he’s back to being eleven-years-old again, he screws up his face and blatantly opens a door on the left side of him.

More storage, this time mostly empty.

He closes the door and shamefully heads to his original destination. When he tries to turn the knob, nothing happens. He frowns at the door—number 42—and shoves his shoulder against it. The door gives way with a bang, and he follows it through, mostly on accident. He steadies himself and feels up the wall for the lightswitch.

The lights flicker on and he breathes in a sharp breath. This definitely is taking up too much space to be here.

It’s a forge.

The bunker has a forge.

Out of all the things for their bunker to have, Sam supposes, a forge is not all that out of place. It stands alongside a dungeon and an infirmary large enough to replace the local hospital, so strange rooms are not out of the equation.

It’s just . . . weird. He’d always pictured the Men of Letters as, well, scrawny nerds. Not exactly the traditional image of blacksmithery.

“We’ve got a forge,” he shouts, belatedly.

“A what?” Dean shouts back.

“A forge,” Sam yells, raising his voice.

“Cool,” Dean replies, and another clattering sound rings out, followed by several choice words.

Sam snorts and moves into the room.

There’s supplies everywhere. Half-finished projects too—an Aquarian star the size of Sam’s bed with one side of a triangle missing, a circle of iron that might have been on its way to becoming a devil’s trap, and a few books, one with parts of its cover overlaid with gold foil. Sam picks his way through the room, notes the hammers spread across the various benches, dodges around the giant anvil the the middle of it, and makes his way to the forge itself.

The glaring lights overhead send light glinting off the carvings in the brickwork around the forge.

Sam’s Ancient Greek is a bit rusty, so he’s not sure what the full sentence above the forge says, but he’s pretty sure Khalkeús, Polúmētis, and Aitnaîos all refer to Hephaestus. Not surprising—the Men of Letters were fairly obsessed with the Greeks, as far as he can tell. There’s a Symbol of Loki carved into one of the bricks. A clay pot with a spider carved into it sits directly next to the forge, and Sam makes a mental note to avoid touching that if at all possible. Never know what’s cursed and what’s not these days.

The other bricks have words and symbols carved onto them too. Sam’s not sure about most of them, but one he does recognize. The Enochian word for fire.

“Huh,” he says aloud, reaching out to trace his fingers over it.

“Whoa,” Dean shouts, “Sam, come see this!”

Sam jumps and then takes another look around the room, ignoring the bubble of something in his gut as he heads out.

Something twinges in his heart as he turns out the light, and he reluctantly turns away.

“We’ve got an armory,” Dean yells in excitement, and Sam shuts the door.

* * *

That night, after a dinner of leftover enchiladas, he and Dean head their separate directions for bed, lights dimming, just a bit, once sunset hits outside—not that it’s visible, clouds still swarming the sky and pelting everything with water when Sam goes out to check.

Sam settles in at his desk, twisting in the chair, hopelessly looking for a comfortable position the seat’s just not willing to provide. He bends over his laptop and starts sorting through emails.

His calves twinge, and he flexes them, wincing. After they worked their way through the armory, they’d finally made it to the door at the end of the hallway and found a spiralling staircase instead of a room. Going up that many stairs, especially after his run and not stretching, just about killed his legs. It was worth it though—once they made it to the top, high enough that both of them were certain they had to be somewhere in the defunct factory the bunker exists under, they found a hatch that opened up into a greenhouse. An actual, somehow still functional greenhouse.

Even Dean had been excited about it.

Some kind of massive ivy had taken over pretty much all available space, including the floor, but Sam’d found a few struggling plants underneath the vines. Witchcrafting plants, mostly, the hardy kind, with magic properties that tended to flourish under any circumstances.

They’d spent so long in there that they ended up finding out how the plants were still alive—sprinklers overhead drenched everything.

Dean hadn’t been happy, and Sam nearly brained himself on a shovel trying to get cover.

Sam brings his leg up to his chest, stretching. He holds it for a count of ten as he skims through _Biological Anthropology Monthly_ , then switches to his other leg.

He should go to bed. He knows it.

He ends up slamming the laptop shut and wandering back down to the so-dubbed “secret hallway.”

Sam goes to head into the book room he’d looked through before, but hesitates, hand hovering over the doorknob. He glances down the hall and finds himself moving before he can really think through it.

The door to the forge is just as stuck this time around, but he’s braced for it now. He squints as the lights turn on, blinking reflexive tears out of his eyes.

Something pulls him toward the tables—curiosity or something deeper—and he trails fingers over tools he doesn’t know the names of. His eyes flicker to the few books spread around, and he leans over the closest one, covered in gold foil lettering.

_Soul-mate Magicks; An Experimental Exploration._

Sam’s breath catches in his throat, just for a moment, the way it does whenever someone says something that hits too close to home— _“Lucifer,” “Clowns,” “Love Potions.”_

When they first moved in, Sam skimmed his way through as many books as he could handle. There were some topics that just didn’t have much relevance at the moment he was reading them, so those got pushed to the back burner while others got some special attention.

Books about soulmates? Those ended up next to demons, archangels, and blood in level of relevance.

In the main library, Sam found a total of three books with references to soulmates. Two of them briefly mentioned the idea while discussing rituals and the other had a chapter on Cherubim with a two-page speculative essay on how soul bonding occurs. Nothing particularly relevant there.

But here, right in front of him, in shiny gold font, is a book on soulmates.

Sam runs a thumb over the damaged skin on the palms of his hands and inhales, pulling a stool out from under the table to balance on as he reaches out. Careful fingers curl around the cover and pull it open. Inside, the Aquarian Star is inked in blue, just off-center. Sam’s still not sure if that’s a kind of library stamp or a symbol of the writer being a part of the Men of Letters—only some of the books in the bunker have it.

Another page turn, and he’s found the author. One Walter Henshaw, with about a million titles after his name. Sam takes a moment to trace a finger over the W at the top before turning the page again.

_Soul-mate Magicks; An Experimental Exploration_

_A study conducted by Walter Henshaw_

_Subjects discussed within experiment will remain anon. throughout, as per request._

_The following details experiments taking place in the years A.D. 1906—1908._

_Observer’s notes:_

_I, Walter Henshaw, first saw potential for this experiment when subjects were identified to be soul-mates (see: Bradshaw’s Divergence for identification practices). As prior experimentation by Portman et al. suggested that souls in contact with each other would produce a different form of energy than the singular soul exists as, I was intrigued by the idea of creating an environment in which two souls could regularly produce said energy without harm to the subjects. As such, the identification of soul-mates was an open door to possibility._

_The following study examines the experiments done with the two subjects in regard to their capacity for soul-magicks when given symbolic locations for said energy to be stored. It is safe to say that the success of this experiment surprised even myself._

_This study has been approved by first-chair members and reviewed by the Board of Experimental MoL studies._

Sam rubs his knuckles over the desk and leans back on his stool, hooking his feet around its legs. He turns the page and nearly jumps out of his skin. There, on the page in front of him, is a detailed drawing of a ring.

A very familiar ring.

Sam flicks the book shut and tucks it under his arm as he stands up. He zigzags his way out of the forge and has to stop himself from running back to his room, settling for a quick walk.

There, he places the book on the desk in front of him, turning back to the diagram. He pulls open a drawer and starts rifling through the mess.

When he and Dean moved in, there’d been little reminders that other people had lived here too. Things left behind, momentos and such. Sam hadn’t given a second thought to the pair of rings he’d found in a small box on the desk he ended up claiming as his, tossing them—and several other things—in a drawer and forgetting about them.

He shifts a file of papers out of the way and finds the little wooden box. He pulls it out and examines it. Nothing of note.

With another glance at the book, he flips open the lid and tilts the box to dump the two rings into his hand. He holds them up to the light and flicks his eyes between them and the picture.

No doubt about it, they match—bronze workmanship, with a blue sapphire in the middle and tiny symbols surrounding it, incredibly detailed.

When Sam had first seen the rings, he’d been reminded of his dad’s class ring that hung out in the Impala’s glove box for years. Now that he’s looking at them though, he can see the blatant otherness.

There’s something in the weight of them, something that pulls at his gut. He sets them carefully down beside his closed laptop.

Sam spares a moment to look at the clock, shrugs to himself, and settles in, turning to the next page of the book, the rings glinting in the light of the lamp.

* * *

When Sam wakes up, he has to peel his cheek off of the third-to-last page of Walter Henshaw’s greatest work to blearily squint at the clock. It shines 11:39 at him and he frowns. Last he’d checked it had been something like five in the morning. Then it really registers and he pushes himself away from the desk, shaking his head violently and rubbing his eyes.

It’s been awhile since he’s stayed up all night reading, and even longer since he’s slept through more than six hours.

The soreness of his body—back complaining about his chosen sleeping position and legs still pained from yesterday—convinces him to get moving. He stumbles out of his room and down the hallway to the kitchen. Music’s playing somewhere in the distance, something about _Sweet Rosalie_ , and when Sam manages to make it to the kitchen, Dean’s there, making a sandwich with the last of the lunch meat.

“Morning,” Dean says, grinning, “how late were you up?”

Sam grunts in his general direction, annoyed with anything close to chipper, and makes his way to the coffee machine.

Dean snorts and takes a bite of his sandwich, moving to sit at the table, “Just sayin’, maybe you’re getting a bit old for all-nighters, huh?”

Sam doesn’t have enough brain power to do anything except raise his middle finger.

“You’re a grouch without coffee,” Dean grumbles through a mouthful of food.

Grabbing his mug—the one without the chip in it, thank you very much—Sam pours his coffee and moves to sit across from Dean, wincing at the movement.

“You okay?” Dean questions, scrolling through something on his computer.

“Fine,” Sam says after a long moment where he imagines a sip of burning-hot caffeine working its way into his bloodstream, “Sore.”

“Shouldn’t sleep like a dumbass then,” Dean says.

Sam raises an eyebrow.

“What,” Dean shrugs, “You weren’t up, I got worried, went to check on you. Thought maybe the world was ending.”

“Funny,” Sam says, deadpan, before blowing carefully on his coffee, ignoring the impulse to smile at the thought of Dean checking in on him. Not like that’s anything new, they both do the same thing. It’s weird when you’ve got so much history with death that it’s the go-to assumption.

The music’s still playing when they fall silent and Sam hovers over his mug, staring off into space somewhere over Dean’s shoulder. He digs his fingernails into his knee and contemplates the book—the implications. He thinks, for a moment, about heaven.

Then he moves to pour himself the last of the cheerios.

“Rain cleared up a bit,” Dean informs him, “But it’s still muddy out. Figure we can hang out unless something comes up.”

Sam nods his agreement, fidgeting with the scrapes on his hands as he thinks about what he’s gotta do.

* * *

An hour later, Sam finds himself screwing up his courage as he walks into the library where Dean’s on his laptop, looking at who-knows-what.

“Hey, I need you to try something,” he announces, jiggling one of the rings in the hand that isn’t in possession of the other.

“What?”

“Just something, stand up.”

Dean kicks back from the table dramatically, dragging himself to his feet like it pains him to do so.

Sam holds out his hand, the second ring in the middle of his palm, “Put this on.”

Dean grabs it, and Sam takes the opportunity to rub at the ring on his own hand, twisting it around his left middle finger—the only one it doesn’t threaten to slide off of immediately.

“What is it?” Dean asks, sliding the ring onto his right pointer finger.

Sam doesn’t bother to answer, knowing he only has a slight window where Dean might not toss the ring back at him or sock him in the jaw. He moves forward, wrapping his arms around Dean’s shoulders, digging his chin in.

“Uh,” Dean says, frozen in place, “You...okay?”

“Yeah.”

“So…” Dean puts his arms up and pats Sam’s back before resting his hands on Sam’s shoulder blades, “Why are we doing this?”

“Because,” Sam says, soaking in the moment. It’s been a while. The longer he can make it last … Well, it’s good for the magic. That’s all.

“Because…” Dean repeats, shaking his head enough to move Sam’s, “You’re not dying, are you? You do know I was joking about that earlier, right?” He sounds a little shaky under the snark, and Sam feels a bit of guilt swell in his chest.

“No, not dying,” Sam inhales and finally glances at his hand. The ring’s changed, now giving off a barely noticeable blue glow. Success. “Experiment. Hold on a minute.”

Dean sighs, and Sam’s sure he’s about to get some lecture on girliness or manhood, but instead, Dean just relaxes, shoves Sam’s arms a bit, and leans into the hug. He squeezes a bit too tight, but Sam might be doing the same, so he doesn’t bring it up, just breathes through it.

Watching his hand, he sees the ring’s glow grow brighter. After a good thirty seconds, the ring starts to warm a bit on his finger. Sam sighs and relaxes his grip. Dean follows, and they step back from each other to regain their bubble.

Sam decides to ignore all the rules of their hugs—for science—and reaches out again instead of brushing it off, grabbing Dean’s wrist, and flipping his hand over to see the gem. Next to each other, the rings’ glow merges together and brightens a bit.

“Whoa, what the—” Dean says, taken aback.

“Men of Letters had some research on this thing. Wanted to test it out. We might be able to do some low-level magic now.”

“With what,” Dean says, snatching his hand back and taking a couple steps away, frowning, and brows furrowing, “the power of hugs?”

Sam shrugs, using his opposite hand to fidget with the ring so he can avoid eye-contact, “Basically. It’s—it’s something with soul power.” Not a lie. Just not the full truth, “I thought it could be useful.”

“So…” Dean trails off, kicking his chair back so he can sit in it.

“So…” Sam mimics, twisting his ring around on his finger.

“So what?” Dean asks, settling back into his chair with a huff.

Sam blinks a bit, rolls his neck until it pops, and then grabs his own chair, making sure there’s some space between him and Dean “So what, what?”

Dean spreads his hands out, exasperated, “The hug, what’s it for?”

Grabbing the pen and notebook he’d left on the table the day before when he was trying to translate an old Hebrew text, Sam flips to an empty page and starts scribbling.

“That was what, thirty seconds? Forty maybe? Then the rings started to glow,” he mutters, noting it quickly.

“Sam,” Dean says, serious enough that Sam can’t help how his head pops up and his spine stiffens to ramrod status. Dean crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow.

With a sigh, Sam slumps back in his seat and caps his pen, starting to fiddle with it, tilting it back and forth between two fingers.

“Okay, so,” he says, glancing off somewhere over Dean’s shoulder, “the rings are old Men of Letters relics, they made ‘em right here in the Bunker, I think.”

“In the forge?” Dean asks.

“Uh, yeah, I think. Anyways, uh, Men of Letters, or one guy at least, did experiments with ‘em. With, uh. . .” Sam tilts the pen faster, watching it blur, “With soulmates.”

He darts his eyes to Dean and watches as comprehension floods his expression, followed by his ears turning a soft red.

They don’t talk about it. It’s one of those things—they just . . . don’t. It’s bad memories and uncomfortable honesty all wrapped up in one non-Winchester-approved pile of regret.

Sam focuses in on the pen again and sniffs, “Uh, anyway, the, uh, the people they did the experiments with, they—the rings picked up on stored energy and they, eventually, turned that into helpful magic.”

“What kinda magic?” Dean asks, voice gruff, his arms crossed even tighter against his chest.

Lifting a shoulder, Sam gives a half-smile, “Small stuff. Healing small cuts, moving things around . . . telekinetics, opening doors, that kinda stuff.”

Dean leans back and nods a little, eyes unfocused, “Could be useful.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Sam says, “been plenty of times where a little boost could’a been helpful on a hunt.”

“So, how’s it work? The whole ju-ju part of this?”

“I, uh, I’m not sure,” Sam admits, softly, “that part was pretty unclear. The people they did the experiments on, they used Latin phrases, I think.”

“Okay,” Dean says, putting his hand up next to his face and examining the ring. He shrugs and points the finger it’s on at Sam, “Ventus.”

Nothing happens, except Sam pursing his lips at Dean.

“What’s the wind supposed to do?”

Dean shrugs, dropping his hand back to the table, “Dunno. It was the only word I could think of off the top of my head.”

“Ventus was the only word you could think of?”

“Oh, shuddup.”

Sam rolls his eyes.

“Oh, go on, if you’re so good at it,” Dean offers, rolling his eyes right back.

“Uh,” Sam says, blinking, his mind going blank for just a touch too long for his liking, “Ignis?” He points in the general direction of a candle they left on a bookshelf after performing a spell in the library.

Dean sucks in a breath and turns to watch the candle with Sam, and for a split second, they have hope on their faces.

The candle sits and very obviously does not catch on fire.

Dean turns back around, “Oh, great one Sam. And seriously? You coulda’ lit this whole place on fire if it worked.”

Sam’s ears go pink, and he brings his hand back down to fiddle with the pen, “Was better than yours.”

“Nuh-uh,” Dean counters, scowling.

“Yeah-huh,” Sam argues, taking the cap back off the pen to note what they tried.

They go back and forth for a while, trying out different words and phrases. Sam switches languages a few times, and Dean strings together nonsensical sentences like it’s going out of fashion.

Eventually, they both run out of things to try, and Sam’s paper is nearly filled with crossed out words.

The rings stay their dull bronze color until Dean reaches out and smacks Sam’s hand down from trying to move a lamp with Sumerian, trapping it on the table. Just as Sam tries to pull back, muttering, “Ow,” the rings start to glow again, that dull blue that could _almost_ be overlooked.

“Well,” Dean says, pulling his hand back quickly, “pretty obvious that your rings don’t work.”

Sam swallows that down and tries not to take it as criticism, even though that’s what it feels like.

“It was just an idea,” he says, shrugging, slumping back in his chair and tucking his arms across his chest and under his armpits.

“Eh,” Dean says, “We can’t all be that girl from that Danny DeVito movie.”

Sam frowns a bit, “What Danny DeVito movie?”

“You know,” Dean says, waving a hand absentmindedly, “Where he plays the bad dad and the principal's a bitch.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know,” Dean repeats, frustrated, “We watched it somewhere near Frisco. That chupacabra case where you screwed up your ribs and we were stuck in the motel for a week?”

“That time you ate tamales for a week straight and the room was nearly uninhabitable because of your gas?”

“You’re one to talk,” Dean says, jutting out his chin.

Then, Sam remembers.

“Matilda,” he says, bringing a hand up to his forehead so he can bop the palm against it.

Dean nods and opens his mouth to confirm Sam’s declaration, but is interrupted by the candle from the bookshelf across from Sam floating gently through the air in front of him. It bobs a bit, then drops down to the table in front of Sam, who’s busy staying frozen in the exact same spot, hand somewhere in the vicinity of his ear, and mouth agape.

“Uh,” Dean voices after a few long moments of stunned silence, “I guess it works?”

“Yeah,” Sam says, slowly dropping his hand to pick up the candle, “Guess so.”

“So what was the magic word?” Dean says, scoffing, “Matilda?”

Sam’s pen goes flying off of his notebook and slams itself into Dean’s outstretched hand. For a moment, all they do is blink at the pen and then stare at each other. A smile creeps its way onto Dean’s face, and Sam can’t help but match it.

“This is gonna be fun,” Dean says, closing his hand around the pen to shake it a few times.

A book and a rubber-banded stack of index cards go flying next, and then Sam’s pen again, when he grabs it back from Dean to start writing notes and Dean gleefully shouts, “Matilda,” at the top of his lungs and yanks it back. Sam holds his hand out for it and says, “Matilda,” in a normal speaking tone, but nothing happens. He tries again, then with a book halfway down the table. Dean laughs at him until he tries to pull the same book toward him and nothing happens for him either. Sam grabs his hand and watches the rings, but there’s no glow.

“Outta juice,” Dean says, tugging his hand back. For a second, they stare at each other, and then Dean grins. He stands up and grab’s Sam’s upper arm, yanking him upright. Sam follows the tug, a little confused, and gets pulled right into a squeezing-tight hug.

“Uff,” he says, muffled, “need to breathe.”

Dean’s grip lessens a bit, and he adjusts their stance, putting one hand on the back of Sam’s head and pressing until Sam’s nose hits his shoulder. Sam hunches over, shuffling his feet, and brings his hands up to hug back. He glances at his watch and starts his mental count.

Fifteen seconds in, and Dean gets a little twitchy. He shifts his weight, then his head. Their ears slide next to each other and Dean’s gets caught behind Sam’s. Sam pulls back a bit, and both of their ears bend weirdly, then unhook themselves from each other. Dean snorts a bit, so Sam digs his nose into his shoulder and tightens his grip, squeezing hard.

“Hey,” Dean says, “don’t crush my ribs.”

“You did it to me,” Sam complains, relaxing his arms.

“Doesn’t mean you get to do it back. Older brother privilege.”

Sam huffs and rolls his eyes hard, hoping Dean can feel it. He’s pretty sure he does, because a moment later, Dean knocks their heads together and rocks his weight, pulling Sam off balance enough that he shuffles his feet in alarm and grabs onto the back of Dean’s shirt for something to hold onto.

Dean starts laughing and Sam shifts his head to dig his chin in, hard. Dean continues to laugh, but slaps the back of Sam’s head in response. Sam moves his hand a bit and digs a thumb in between Dean’s ribs. Dean jumps, so he does it again.

“Hey,” Dean says, slapping Sam’s head again, “knock it off.”

“Make me,” Sam grumbles.

That’s the wrong thing to say, because a moment later they’re in the strangest tickle war Sam’s ever been in, both of them holding tight and digging fingers in where they can manage to. Dean shifts his weight again and Sam follows, ready this time. He scrunches his neck back, trying to stop Dean from gripping fingers there, and spins them a bit to make Dean the one off balance. It backfires a bit when Dean’s leg catches behind his own and they both go stumbling into the table, hips slamming into the side of it.

“Ow,” Dean says, straightening back up, “okay, okay, no more.”

Sam rolls his eyes and follows Dean’s lead, loosening his grip so that they’re just gently hugging again. They stay like that for a few breaths, chests heaving against each other. Then Dean pats the back of Sam’s head a couple times before letting go entirely. Sam follows suit, and they back up, both of them automatically turning to lean against the table. Dean’s the one who reaches out for Sam’s hand this time.

They both stare at the glow of the rings.

“Is it just me,” Sam begins, “or is that. . .”

“Brighter than last time,” Dean finishes, nodding.

“Huh,” Sam huffs, dropping Dean’s hand and reaching out for his notebook and pen, “the uh, the book did say that longer times, uh, touching, increased the power.”

They both glance down at their watches at the same time.

“So,” Dean says, “touching. Not just hugs.”

Sam shrugs, “Yeah,” he worries his lip a bit, lies, “wasn’t very specific.”

“Huh,” Dean offers. They stand there for a moment, and then Dean nudges his shoulder, holds out a hand, and grins, pointing to the book at the other end of the table.

“Matilda.”


	2. Truth

They spend their day in the library together, trying to figure out what makes the rings tick, and Sam would swear up and down that they hug more in a couple of hours than they had in the past couple of _years_.

After the success of “Matilda,” they try other movie titles. Dean immediately goes for “ _Back to the Future_ ,” and Sam chews him out excessively, which just makes Dean list every time-travel movie he’s got in his repertoire, from _Star Trek IV_ to _Timecop_. Nothing seems to happen, and Sam’s phone continues to inform him that it’s still, thankfully, 2016.

Sam still reaches over to slap his hand over Dean’s mouth when he reaches _Terminator 2._

They try names next, without any luck, until Sam reaches his limit on “P” names with “Parker, Prince, Paul, Paulina.”

Dean snorts and lifts his head up from the table where he’d put it down somewhere in the K’s.

“You remember Paulina Tracee?”

“Who?”

“Paulina Tracee, uh, those couple months we spent in Bismarck?”

Sam blinks, uncomprehending for a moment before realization hits.

“Oh yeah,” he says, “that girl you dated. She was nice.”

“Yeah,” Dean draws out, smirking just a bit too much for Sam’s comfort, “she had that nice perfume, remember? Could always tell when she’d been in a room.”

Rolling his eyes, Sam replies, “Yeah, I remember. The apartment always smelled like her after. . . after . . .”

He frowns a little, sniffing. Then he does it again, deliberately. Dean lowers his eyebrows, confused, but then follows Sam’s example and inhales through his nose. He leans back like someone slapped him in the face.

“Is it just me or . . .” Sam starts, hesitatingly.

“. . . Does it actually smell like flowery perfume?” Dean finishes, crossing his arms over his chest.

They both stare at each other for a moment, then Sam snorts a bit.

“So, Paulina Tracee?”

He’s pretty sure (mostly, probably, sort-of sure) that he’s not imagining the way the smell in the room gets stronger. Dean sucks in a breath and sneezes messily, and that’s the best evidence Sam’s seen yet—Dean sneezes when he so much as walks _near_ the laundry aisle in grocery stores.

“Okay,” Sam says while Dean’s busy making faces as he wipes his own spit off the table in front of him, “So . . . we’ve got making small objects come to us and . . . febreeze.”

Dean huffs a laugh, “We’re playing in the big leagues now.”

“So, we’re working with names,” Sam says, writing _Paulina Tracee_ in big capital letters in his notebook and circling it, “But . . . I’m not sure . . .”

“Names of people we know?” Dean offers, gesturing, “Or characters or whatever?”

“Maybe . . .” Sam hums, “Maybe. . . people we associate with things? Like moving things around or—“

“Or annoyingly strong perfume,” Dean interjects, sitting up in his seat with a grin.

That sets off another round of naming people. Sam steals Dean’s computer and makes use of wikipedia while Dean names off all the hunters he can think of.

Nothing changes.

Dean calls it quits when Sam’s three-quarters of the way through the list of _Star Wars_ characters, leaving to find food. Sam uses the break to go grab the _Soul-mate_ book. Somehow, in the vastness of the library, it seems smaller than before.

He flips it open to one of his makeshift post-it-note bookmarks and skims.

_Long-term touch is most beneficial toward generating energy. Subjects spent time relaxing against each other while reading. Total hours of continuous touch = 3. Recommended action: test both skin-surface generation and duration generation._

Something in his stomach squirms at that.

It’s weird. They’ve never been touchy-feely types, not really, except for when things get _really_ bad.

But this is easy. Maybe it’s just old habits kicking in—that have-goal-will-finish attitude Sam’s pretty sure they both picked up from their dad.

So maybe . . . Maybe he can make it work. If he phrases it right, if he does it for the _experiment_ of it . . .

Sam shakes his head, refocusing his gaze on his notes. He’s sure there’s some common thread between them, some way to figure out which people they can use to set off the rings.

At some point when he’s nose deep in a pile of books he rounds up to try to understand the spellwork of the rings, Dean wanders back in. A bowl of disgustingly orange mac ‘n cheese winds up on top of Sam’s notebook, so he picks it up to eat just so Dean will leave it alone. He glances away from his laptop to snatch the ketchup Dean brought with him, squirting it over the noodles. Sam’s well aware that it’s disgusting—many a college roommate had made faces at his plate—but it’s the only way he’s going to get it down.

“Anything?” Dean asks through a mouthful of food.

Sam shakes his head in the negative, spearing some noodles with his fork and forcing himself to bring it to his mouth and chew. They haven’t been grocery shopping recently, and, between the rain and the last hunt, they’re pretty much down to their stable foods, which mostly consist of boxes of hamburger helper, fruit snacks, and a couple of cases of green beans (that were on sale for so cheap that the penny-pinching instincts they both tend to show at inopportune times reared their heads).

“Hey,” Dean says with a laugh, “you remember when you’d always ask for marshmallows with your mac and cheese?”

“Sure,” Sam mumbles, flipping a few pages in a book on symbolic attire to the chapter on jewelry.

“Yeah,” Dean snorts, “Good ol’ fluff marshmallow mix.”

There’s a sudden groaning sound that rankles the back of Sam’s neck, and he startles when the lights flicker and then go out. The steady humming of electricity that’s always in the background cuts off. As the emergency generator kicks on with a loud thumping noise, a horrific chill runs down Sam’s spine and he freezes in place, heart kicking into overdrive.

Regular cold he can handle—it’s not the same, it’s just _not_ —but this feels bone-deep.

He shivers and tries to focus around the ringing of his ears.

The low-power lights turn on, bathing everything in red.

“Whoa,” Dean says, one hand under the table, reaching for one of their stashed guns, “just me or did it just get really chilly? Huh, Sam? Sam? Sammy?”

He can’t move. It’s all he can do to remind himself that this isn’t _there_.

“Hey, Sammy,” Dean says, louder than before, “C’mon man.” He grabs at Sam’s shoulder and shakes.

Sam inhales suddenly, shocking himself with the movement. His chest heaves in a panicked up-down motion, and he digs his fingernails into the table.

“Hey, hey, you good?” Dean says, sliding his chair back to grab at Sam’s knees. He squeezes his fingers around Sam’s kneecaps, then moves one hand to the side of Sam’s face.

“Just in the bunker Sam, power just went out for a minute, that’s all.”

“Yeah,” Sam forces out, pressing his cheek into Dean’s hand and blinking, focusing his gaze on the freckles on Dean’s nose.

They stay like that for a moment, lights pulsing slowly as the low-power signal, and Sam watches how the shadows on Dean’s face change.

“I’m good,” Sam says finally, “We should—we should get the power back on.”

Dean relaxes a bit and taps roughly at Sam’s face a couple of times before pulling back. He pushes himself to his feet and offers Sam a hand up. He takes it, even though he doesn’t really need to.

They both reach under the table and bring the spare guns with them as they leave the library. Better safe than sorry.

Dean pulls open a drawer and grabs the ring of mostly-mystery keys and slams it shut again.

The bunker hallways look different in this lighting. Menacing instead of indifferent. Sam stays half a step behind Dean, their shoulders brushing as they follow the halls to the electric room.

He takes each step deliberately, catching back onto life. For just a second, he takes the time to be grateful Dean was there. Whenever either of them spins out, it’s always easier when the other’s around to ground them. Dean digs into Sam, gives him something physical to grasp at, and when it’s the other way around, Sam does his best to distract Dean, pulling his attention away from the knives or the demon or the smell that set him off.

(Sometimes he’s pretty sure that Dean’s the only real thing in his world.)

Sam’s stomach settles more with every step as they continue unimpeded.

Inside the room, Dean unlocks the cage and reaches for the lever to reset the system. A second later, the room hums to life and the familiar white light flickers on overhead.

“There we go,” Dean says, patting the fuse box, “Whadda you think happened? Thought the storm was clearing up.”

Sam shakes his head, double-checking his safety before tucking the Beretta in his waistband, “Aren’t we on our own grid? Power comes from that weird room down by the dungeon, right?”

Dean nods, “ ‘S what I thought, at least.”

“Then maybe . . .” Sam swallows down the last of his panic and tries to force his brain into compliance, “Maybe . . .” he glances down at the ring on his finger, “Dean, what were you talking about before the lights went out?”

“Just the food, why?”

“No, specifically. You were talking about mac and cheese.”

Dean tilts his head at him and Sam can read the worry around his eyes, “Yeah. Uh, just about, uh. . . Marshmallows. Y’know, how I used to add hot sauce or—or fluff marshmallow mix—”

With an alarmingly loud clunk, the lights go out.

In the darkness, Dean mutters a muffled, “Holy sh—” as the generator revs up. That chill, a little too close to familiar, settles over Sam, but he’s ready for it this time. He feels his way over to the reset, bumping up against Dean, and pushes it back into place. The lights come back on.

Sam glances over at Dean, brows furrowed. Dean grins back at him after a moment of shock.

“These rings might be handy after all, huh?”

* * *

It isn’t until he’s lying in bed that night, grateful for a moment away from Dean, that Sam’s brain clicks the pieces together.

“Memories,” he mouths, sitting up and throwing his blankets off. He walks, barefoot, over to his desk, turning on the lamp. He sorts through the pile he’d transported in from the library earlier to pick out the gold-leaf book.

He thumbs through it, landing on a page he hadn’t marked before because it seemed so inconsequential, scanning a finger down the entries until he finds the lines he’s looking for.

_17 Jan 1907_

_Original plans to use successfully stored energy to power spells found in the White Book of Magick in place of herbal ingredients fell through. Where herbal spells can be triggered through fire or other means, there does not appear to be a way to initialize the use of the rings’ power. Further experimentation and deliberation necessary._

_23 Jan 1907_

_Subjects successfully performed low-level terrakinesis. This was accidental—subjects were going about usual business, translating latin texts (note: both skilled translators with experience in the field, having worked together on various texts together for many years). When discussing the conjugation of pluperfect tenses, both rings reportedly lit up, and the ceiling above them began to crack. I believe this to be the start to understanding how to utilize this soul-power._

Sam absentmindedly bites at the dead skin on his lips and picks up the book, heading out of his room.

He slept in too late to fall asleep right now anyway.

When Sam knocks and opens Dean’s door, he finds his brother, eyes closed and headphones on, sitting upright on his bed. He knocks again, louder this time, and Dean’s eyes snap open.

“Hey,” Dean says, tugging his headphones off, “What’s up?”

Sam holds up the book in his hands and walks to sit down on the end of Dean’s bed, dragging one leg up so he can face toward Dean.

“Think I’ve got it figured out. So the—the people, the original subjects of the study or whatever, they were experts in latin languages, right?” He points a finger to the line in the book, laying it flat between them, “They, uh, were, ‘both skilled translators with experience in the field, having worked together on various texts together for many years.’”

“Okay,” Dean says, “So?”

“So,” Sam says, feeling excitement bubble in his chest, “they were _both_ translators, and they worked together on a lot of things. So they would’ve had these. . . shared experiences. So—”

“So the magic’s based on memories?” Dean finishes, leaning in to read the entries for himself.

“I think so, maybe. Think about it—the whole ‘Matilda’ thing,” he pauses for a moment before remembering that they’d run the rings down before heading off to bed, “we both have this, this memory associated with it, this strong . . . Shared experience. Same with Paulina.”

“And with marshy-mac-’n-cheese,” Dean says, “that winter dad left us in that cabin and the storms knocked the power out and we ran outta fuel for the generator.”

Sam tilts his head, squinting his eyes as recognition settles in his mind, “I forgot about that. We nearly froze to death.”

Dean scoffs, “We didn’t _freeze_ , it was just a little chilly.”

Sam purses his lips and stares at Dean. So, maybe they have somewhat different memories of the same event.

“Dean, you got _hypothermia_.”

“Whatever,” Dean rolls his eyes, “Least we had mac ‘n cheese.”

Sam sucks in a breath and shakes off his irritation, “Okay, so, I guess if that’s the case . . .” he trails off, frowning.

“We should work backward,” Dean says, patting one hand against the book, “Pick something that would be handy and then figure out what’ll make the rings go all Harry Potter on us.”

Something in Sam’s throat sticks at the mention of Harry Potter (he hasn’t been able to listen to those audiobooks since Charlie—)

“Yeah,” he agrees, “Good plan.”

Dean nods, “Cool.”

For a moment, Sam flicks his eyes back and forth between Dean and the door before catching himself doing it.

Dean catches him too and snorts, “In the morning, Sam, get some sleep.”

“Yeah,” he nods, “Yeah. Night.”

He fidgets with the ring on his finger and grabs the book, one of his knees popping when he stands up.

He shoots one last look at Dean, who’s put his headphones back on and is mouthing along to something, before closing the door.

* * *

Sam wakes up at two in the morning, shivering, and gets up to put on socks and grab an extra blanket. Back under the covers, he digs his fingers into the scrapes on his hands that still haven’t healed completely.

He watches the numbers on his alarm clock tick over to the next ones again and again, and pointedly doesn’t think about how when he and Dean share motel rooms, they both catch each other awake at weird times.

* * *

The next day, when Sam gets back from his run, shoes and legs splattered with mud, Dean catches him in the war room.

“Got a case, Butler County, Iowa. Historical log cabin so historical it’s picked up its very own ghosty.”

Sam pants and gives a thumbs up, jogging to the showers.

He throws a few last minute things in his duffle and starts heading out before he pauses and backtracks to the desk. He picks up the ring he’d left there before his run and flips it back and forth between his fingers before putting it on.

When he makes it back to the war room, Dean’s there, ready with his own bag and a couple of semi-crushed granola bars that had seen better days. He tosses them to Sam, who rips one open with his teeth and starts chewing.

They roll out, and Dean mutters about mud messing up the Impala’s undercarriage for at least five minutes after they’re out of the actual mud.

* * *

Near Omaha, they stop for food and to do some preliminary research. It’s not that small or shabby of a place, so Sam’s confused when Dean’s boots end up behind his own heels when they get seated at a booth. He shoots Dean a look over the top of his laptop, and Dean taps a finger against the ring on his hand.

Sam takes a moment to process the motion, and then glances at the ring on his own hand, nodding. He shuffles a bit so that Dean doesn’t have to slouch so far down.

Dean kicks at his ankle, “You sleep last night?”

“Yeah?” Sam replies, looking up to squint his eyes at Dean.

He’s interrupted by the waitress bringing their drinks. Dean offers a, “Thanks,” and then they order—Philly Cheese for Dean and fish and chips for Sam.

“You don’t even like fish,” Dean says once their waitress is out of hearing range.

Sam shrugs, “It’s okay. And good for you,” he adds, pointedly.

Dean rolls his eyes and unlocks the tablet he’d stolen from Sam’s bag, tapping away at something or other.

Sam returns to his research on the historical background of the town, glancing down every once in a while to check on his ring, glowing so slightly that he can barely tell in this lighting. He belatedly kicks back at Dean, who snorts and traps Sam’s feet together, stomping on his toes while he’s at it.

* * *

“You should sleep along the way,” Dean says when they get back to the car, “you’re looking a little, uh, racoon-y there,” he gestures to his own eyes.

“I’m fine,” Sam says, distracted by an email from a hunter he’d made contact with in Peru.

Dean rolls his eyes and turns the keys, pulling carefully out of the parking lot while The Doobie Brothers sing about listening to the music.

It isn’t until they hit Coon Rapids that Sam notices that he’s kind of faltering. He keeps having to refocus his eyes on the article he’s reading, and it’s incredibly tempting to just lean his head back and let _November Rain_ just play in the background . . .

He slips back into awareness when Dean’s hand lands on his knee. Sam squints his eyes open for a moment, looking blankly at how Dean’s ring looks dramatically more blue in the shade of the Impala before slumping back into half-sleep, jerking awake for split seconds whenever the song switches or Dean hits a pothole.

At some point, he blinks and realizes that the car’s in park. He straightens up from his slump and stretches as best he can in the cramped space, yawning hard enough to make his eyes water.

“Hey, Sleeping Beauty,” Dean says, leaning in through the driver’s side window, “grab the bags, I got us a room.”

Sam blearily complies, clambering out of his seat and shutting the door with his hip before he opens the back, bracing himself against the seat to grab their duffles from off the floor of the car. Dean pulls the weapons bag out from the trunk and slams it shut at the same time Sam closes the door.

“Room twenty-two,” Dean says, jerking his chin in the direction of the motel. Sam grunts in acknowledgement and follows behind him.

They get settled in as much as they _can_ get settled into a place like this—just this side of absolutely shady—and Sam finally shakes off his sleepiness, glancing at his watch.

“Too late to hit up the police,” he says, “where do you wanna try?”

“Let’s grab food and then a drink,” Dean says, in the process of changing his shirt, “see what the local chatter is.”

Sam’s mouth twitches, “Yeah. Sounds good.”

* * *

At the bar, they barely have time to order their drinks before they find their answers. A guy and gal sitting next to them at the counter—Sam nicknames them Bobby Joe and Billy Sue in his head before he can think better of it—are loudly discussing ‘those poor old Jacobs,’ and how the historic county fair will never be the same now that Devon’s dead.

“And you’ve heard the rumors, right?” Bobby Joe questions, slurring just a touch, “think she really did it? Barbara?”

“Shut up,” Billy Sue says, shoving at his shoulder, “Shouldn’t talk about her like that. She’s a good woman.”

“I know that,” Bobby Joe says, sounding offended, “Just sayin’. Wouldn’t hold it against her if she did do it. Y’know Devon had an affair with Mrs. Crawford way back when they first got married?”

Sam and Dean share a look, slightly startled and wary of the easy answer. Bobby Joe and Billy Sue keep going, moving on to who in the town was having an affair with who, and whose baby Patricia Myers’ kid _really_ was. Sam and Dean continue to eavesdrop over their beers, quietly rehashing arguments about Colt versus Taurus and He-Man versus She-Ra that are decades old, worn in like ratty tennis shoes. There’s no more forthcoming information from their two unaware informants, especially after shots get delivered to the pair. Sam’s grateful they stuck to beer, because it makes it easy to bow out after a wave of people crowds the bar and head back to the car.

The local newspaper’s obituary for Devon is hidden behind a paywall that Sam really doesn’t feel like funding, so they head back to the motel so Sam can hack through and Dean can try his luck at the police records and cemetery information. It’s so normal, so easy, that it feels like a trap. They spend more time than they need to hashing out the details, talking through the story and evidence.

It’s two in the morning when they finally head out, everything packed back in the car in case of a hasty exit. Dean’s powering through, but Sam feels disgustingly guilty about his nap earlier, and tries to do more than his share of the digging to make up for it. Butler’s cemetery is out in the middle of nowhere, dirt road and weeds and all, so when they crack open the cement around the casket, there’s no one around to see how Sam goes flying when Devon Jacobs decides to show his ghostly mug.

“Sam!” Dean shouts, followed by the sound of his shotgun firing.

Sam blinks away stars and pulls himself upright, wincing as the bush he landed on digs its thorns in. A particularly nasty one he’d been lucky not to lose an eye to leaves a gash on his forehead that drips blood onto his eyelashes. Sam squeezes his eyes shut, slowly tugging his way out of the brambles. Another shot rings out, and he pulls faster, leaving rips in his shirt and jeans and scratches wherever the thorn was long enough to pierce through to skin.

“Sam!” Dean calls again.

“On my way!” Sam shouts back, untangling one last branch from around his thigh and dragging his arm up to wipe blood on his sleeve so he can see. He jogs back to the hole, dodging gravestones on the way. He slides past Dean, standing braced to take another shot, and gets back to work.

“You good?” Dean asks, spinning a slow circle.

“Fine,” Sam gasps out in-between heaving breaths as he does his best to break up the concrete so he can break through the casket.

He manages to wedge his pickaxe under the lid and press far enough in the dirt to crack it open. An awful smell wafts up to him, and he chokes back the urge to puke.

“Ugh,” Dean says, coughing when he paces too close to the edge of the hole, “that’s disgusting.”

“Only been a couple weeks,” Sam offers, pulling himself out of the grave to grab the salt. He dumps a couple of handfuls in and follows it up with pouring gas on top.

Something grabs the back of his collar, and he chokes, dropping the gas can as a ghostly hand drags him backward. He brings his hands up to his neck, gagging as the grip on his shirt tightens.

“SAM!” Dean yells, shotgun pointed in the direction of the ghost—and, consequently, Sam. Sam can’t shake his head as he repeatedly tries to dig in his heels, but he brings up a hand and points to the hole they dug, spiraling one finger upward. Dean gets the message and switches gears, reaching into his jacket pocket.

Cold fingers brush along the back of Sam’s neck, and the back of his knees hit a tombstone, tripping him and placing all of his weight on his shirt collar.

It’s in that moment that the ghost shrieks and the chill Sam associates with spirits changes abruptly to fiery heat. Sam drops to the ground, head smacking against it so harshly that black spots float in his vision. He gets an upside down view of Jacobs going up in flames before he vanishes.

“Sam!” Dean shouts again, as Sam inhales and immediately starts coughing and hacking.

Dean slides next to him and braces Sam’s back as he leans up to try and catch his breath in-between his coughs.

“Alright, there you go. You’re fine,” Dean says, bringing one hand around to wrap around Sam’s heaving chest, “In, out, there it is.”

Sam finally gets enough air to chase away the darkness in his vision and the coughing subsides. A moment later he feels like maybe sitting up is a manageable goal, and he pulls himself upright. A trickle of blood finds its way down the side of his nose a moment later, and he brings up a hand to wipe it away.

“Geez, this was supposed to be an easy win, Sam, what’re you doing?” Dean asks, something between a huff and a laugh ruffling the hair by Sam’s ear.

“Getting beat up by a—” Sam starts, throat giving out part way through to treat him to another round of coughing.

“Okay, c’mon genius, let’s get you up. Ready? One, two, and _three_ ,” Dean pulls him up with arms under his and Sam follows, feeling a little unsteady on his feet.

“Alright, you can sit in the Impala while I fill in the hole, ‘kay?” Dean says, more of a statement than a question.

Sam wants to protest, knowing Dean is exhausted, but his throat seizes up again before he can, and Dean drags him to the car like that’s the only option Sam has. He’s managing to walk under his own power by the time Dean’s tugging open the passenger door, but he can’t help but be grateful when Dean shoves him inside. More blood trickles down the side of his face as he leans his side against the back of the seat, legs stretching out on the ground outside the car.

“Alright, give me a few and we’ll head back to the motel,” Dean says, squeezing Sam’s arm once before heading back to the grave. Sam wants to pick himself up and get to work, but his head is throbbing and he keeps having to cough, his throat sending shooting pain up and down his neck, so he just sits and tiredly wipes blood away from his eyes when it threatens to blind him.

* * *

By the time they get back to the room, Sam feels steady enough to walk himself to the door and let himself in. Dean follows with their things and pulls out the med kit as soon as he kicks the door shut behind him.

“Lemmie take a look at you,” Dean says, gesturing Sam over to one of the beds. Sam has opinions about this, but talking doesn’t seem like a very good option at this point so he just begrudgingly follows directions.

Dean sits across from him, beds close enough that their knees try to take up the same space. Dean offers Sam some heavy-duty painkillers, but he turns them down, reaching for the ibuprofen instead.

“You sure?” Dean asks, “That looks pretty nasty,” he points to the cut across Sam’s forehead.

Sam nods, closing his eyes when Dean’s hand grasps his chin and starts the process of cleaning the wound.

“Nasty son-of-a-bitch really went after you there,” Dean says, almost as an afterthought to the way he’s gently wiping away blood, “must’ve really grinded his gears.”

Sam doesn’t bother to reply, wincing as Dean’s motions reopen part of the cut.

“Dammit,” Dean says, dabbing at the blood. He switches hands to grab at the antiseptic wipes, and the ring on his finger brushes against Sam’s cheek. A moment later, something clicks in Sam’s brain and he opens his eyes again. He brings up a hand and taps at Dean’s.

“Yeah, what?” Dean says, preoccupied with getting blood out of Sam’s eyebrows.

Sam taps harder, then grabs at the ring on Dean’s hand, wiggling it back and forth. Dean takes a break from playing nurse and matches Sam’s gaze. Sam deliberately wiggles Dean’s ring again and then brings up his own hand to point at his.

“Oh,” Dean says, “there’s an idea.” He lets go of Sam’s chin and glances down at his ring, “How do you figure . . .”

Shrugging, Sam taps at the side of Dean’s mouth.

“Guess it can’t hurt to try,” Dean says, rolling his shoulders, “okay, uh, give me a minute. Gotta think of a good one.”

Sam nods once, flicking his eyes to the side to try and focus on his own memories. Nothing comes to mind right away, other than _Cas_ , but Dean starts talking.

“You remember . . . uh, no. Well,” Dean pauses, brows furrowing, “Well, you remember Zachariah? When, uh. When he wanted me to say yes to Michael. That first time when we—” he swallows so hard that Sam can see it shake his shoulders, “When I found out I was the, uh, the Michael Sword.”

Sam nods, chest feeling tight, and not just because breathing is more of a struggle than usual.

“Zachariah, he uh, when—when Cas showed up, he healed us. Just, zap, you get your lungs back, I don’t have cancer, right?”

There’s a cut on Sam’s knee from the bush, and he wiggles a finger in between the threads holding the fabric together and presses against it.

“Yeah,” Dean says, putting his hand back on Sam’s face, darting his eyes back and forth from the cut to his ring, “Uh. Zachariah. Cas. Michael Sword.”

Nothing happens, and Sam presses harder against the scratch.

“Uh, crap, I dunno, archangel. Chuck? What's it—Castle Storage—”

Dean’s ring lights up so brightly that Sam has to slam his eyes shut. A kind of electric buzzing, different from the way angel grace feels, travels from the point where Dean’s ring brushes against his skin and up across his forehead. The feeling fizzles out and Sam opens his eyes. Dean moves his hand to press his thumb against the path of the cut and Sam shudders, some kind of last-minute charge passing between them when Dean touches it.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Dean mutters, pulling back, “It worked.”

“So it’s—” Sam starts before another round of coughs cuts him off.

Dean waits for him to finish, and then cups his hand around the side of Sam’s neck.

“Castle Storage.”

He waits expectantly, staring at Sam, but nothing happens. Sam shakes his head.

“What's it Castle Storage,” Dean tries again, to no avail.

Sam reaches up and grabs Dean’s hand, tugging down so that they both can see the rings.

“Oh,” Dean says when the rings don’t immediately glow, “Outta juice.”

Nodding, Sam drops Dean’s hand and slumps, sudden exhaustion hitting him.

Then, Dean’s dragging him up, arms around his torso, and Sam stumbles when they’re upright, reaching around to grab ahold of Dean. He wants to roll his eyes, turn away, and grab a shower, but his throat is killing him and if the solution to that is this simple . . .

He loses track of time somewhere in there, resting the side of his face against Dean’s shoulder so he doesn’t irritate his throat more, but he zones back in when Dean’s hand rests on his neck and Dean announces, “Castle Storage.”

The electricity is back, spiking around his foramen magnum and around to his adam’s apple. A moment later, it dies out, and Sam coughs a bit.

“How’s that?” Dean asks, making awful popping sounds with his knuckles behind Sam’s back.

Sam tries it out, “Better.”

He doesn’t choke on it.

The side of Dean’s face moves against his, and Sam can tell that he’s grinning.

“This is pretty handy,” he says, shuffling around.

“Yeah,” Sam offers, relaxing his grip so that he can step back—only, Dean doesn’t let go.

“Whoa, hey,” Dean says, squeezing tighter, “don’t think I don’t see those other cuts. Might as well take care of them too.”

“Dean,” Sam sighs, rolling his eyes.

“Sa-am,” Dean mimics, shaking him gently.

Sam resigns himself to his fate and rests his chin on Dean’s shoulder.

* * *

When they finally work their way back to the bunker, grabbing groceries on the way, Sam retreats to his room, digging out the soul-mate book from underneath his piles of papers and files, flipping to a page he almost hadn’t marked out of sheer embarrassment.

_Feb 20 1907_

_Long-term touch is most beneficial toward generating energy. Subjects spent time relaxing against each other while reading. Total hours of continuous touch = 3. Recommended action: test both skin-surface generation and duration generation._

He needs an excuse to touch Dean for longer than the time it takes to hug and barely light the rings up. Sam spends a couple days stressing about it, thinking about how to convince Dean to go along with it—for science—every time they stand up to hug while they try out different inciting words.

 _Duluth_ , where Dean taught Sam how to pick locks on a series of foreclosed houses in the summer of 1992, unlocks everything from padlocks to the seven-step combination lock on one of the cursed object rooms in the bunker, as long as the rings are charged enough, but only if Sam’s the one to say it. If Dean does, it works to lock those very same locks with a snap, leaving a weird force-field type thing around them for anywhere from thirty seconds to forty-five minutes, depending on how casually Dean said the word.

 _Henly, Texas,_ mends rips in clothing like they’d never been damaged in the first place, and Dean’s face when they figured that one out was reward enough for the hours they spent trying to figure out what other things this small-type magic might be good for. Apparently, Sam and Dean remember Henly very, very differently.

 _Popcorn Needle_ oh-so-helpfully pops popcorn without the use of a microwave. (They’d figured that one out on accident when they realized Christmas was coming up, thanks to Walmart’s early seasonal preparations, and Dean had reminisced on the only decorations they made as kids—strings of popcorn—while grabbing a box of microwave popcorn off of the shelf. They abandoned the mess, guiltily leaving it for some poor, overworked soul to clean up.)

And, perhaps most uselessly, _Aerosmith concert_ makes both of their mouths taste and feel like they poured pop rocks on their tongues, despite being empty—or, in Dean’s case, full of pie.

But Sam’s got an awful gut feeling that there’s more they could be doing, an easier way to keep a charge than Dean walking up behind him and grabbing him in a backward hug at seemingly random times of day.

He’s just a little too anxious to bring it up, just a touch too caught up in how the last times they’ve ended up holding onto each other for extended periods of time was when one of them was dying or dead.

So he sits and tries to find hunts and very carefully doesn’t mutter the words _fluff marshmallow mix._

* * *

“Ugh,” Dean says, leaning back from his computer and rubbing at his eyes, “I need a break.”

Sam hums, glancing back and forth from a book on skinwalkers to his laptop screen where he’s transcribing the text.

Dean reaches over and slams the book shut, barely missing catching Sam’s fingers in it.

“Hey,” Sam complains, drawing his hands close to his chest, “C’mon dude, I was reading that.”

“I know,” Dean says, rolling his eyes, “and I’m calling break time. All you’ve done today is drink coffee and read.”

“I like drinking coffee and reading,” Sam mutters, rubbing an absent-minded hand over the ring on his middle finger.

“I like drinking coffee and reading,” Dean mimics, two octaves up from his normal speaking tone.

Sam makes a face at Dean, who makes the same face back.

“Netflix and lunch,” Dean declares, standing up and shutting his laptop lid.

Sam leans back in his chair and sighs.

“C’mon,” Dean wheedles, “I’ll even let you pick what we watch.”

Sam’s head perks up and he raises his eyebrows and opens his mouth—

“Except documentaries. Those are off the table. If it ain’t shark week, I ain’t watching it.”

Sam slumps back down and hunches his shoulders.

“Fine,” he drawls out, finally, “no complaining though.”

Dean holds his hands up innocently, “You got it.”

* * *

“Why the hell would anybody want to watch this?” Dean complains, stuffing his hoagie into his mouth.

“You said you wouldn’t complain,” Sam says, crunching down on a carrot stick, “so suck it up. And stop getting crumbs on my bed.”

Dean rolls his eyes, and settles in.

Not a minute later, he’s back at it again, “Look, I get that you like serial killers. Weird, but whatever. Why do we have to watch a procedural cop show about it?”

“I like it, that’s why,” Sam says, making a face at the crumbs that are still very obviously getting on his bed.

Dean nudges his shoulder against Sam and starts up his complaints again, but Sam’s zoning out.

There’s an idea. A weird, embarrassing idea, but an idea all the same.

It’s an old trick, one he hasn’t used in a while. The thing about hunting is that once you’ve been in it for long enough, one learns to respect the sleeping man. Hunting means never knowing when you’ll have to suffer through twenty hours of driving without sleep or when the next insomnia-ridden night will roll around, so whenever someone’s sleeping, you’re supposed to leave them to it, as long as you can. Sam’s used that to his advantage before, getting out of (or delaying) conversations, dodging breakfast, skipping chores. And he’s pretty good at faking it.

It’s not like he had a full night’s sleep last night anyway, so it’s pretty believable.

Dean’s still droning on and on about the show, and if Sam hadn’t already seen this episode re-run across three different crappy motel tv screens, he’d be a little annoyed, but the truth is he picked out the episode just because he knew Dean would have a million things to point out and comment on with it. Criminal Minds is about as mindless as Sam gets with his tv.

So, he finishes his sandwich, eats his carrots, and downs the last of the milk in his glass. He settles back on the headboard and offers his own commentary when Dean pauses. Slowly, he fades himself out of the conversation, and lets Dean’s rambling take over. Then, he closes his eyes for longer stretches when he blinks. He lets his head bob down and pretends to catch himself. That’s what seals the deal for Dean. Dean gets those wrinkles around his eyes from when he’s both worried and trying not to laugh. Sam shakes his head and grumbles out an annoyed comment when Dean tries to snatch the remote away, and then repeats the head bob. He blinks his eyes furiously when he brings his head back up, and adjusts his position on the bed.

“That’s the dude?” Dean asks, outraged, as the team closes in on the serial killer.

“Mmm-hmm,” Sam hums, crossing his arms over his chest and shuffling back a bit.

Dean sighs, “They really couldn’t make it less obvious?”

Sam just shrugs his shoulders and clicks the next episode button the moment it shows up. They’re both done with their food and he just hopes Dean doesn’t leave. He hasn’t even gotten to really start enacting his plan yet.

Dean doesn’t leave, but he does grumble under his breath as the next episode lays out its plot.

Halfway through the episode, with Dean paying attention to the screen with furrowed eyebrows, Sam finally makes his move and relaxes his body, letting gravity slowly pull at him until his head thumps on to Dean’s shoulder. He feels Dean’s huff of amusement in the way his head moves. Then, Dean’s shifting, until he’s sitting a little lower and Sam’s head is tilted comfortably so that Dean’s shoulder isn’t digging into his adam’s apple.

Sam’s calling this one a success.

Dean switches the show after a little bit, tugging the remote out of Sam’s hands. Sam pretends to stir a bit at that so he can change the way his spine is positioned, and nearly gives himself away with laughter when Dean’s reaction is to freeze up, tensing all the way up to his neck, where Sam can feel it.

Then, the tv picks back up, and Sam pretends to settle back in, (except maybe he’s not pretending) and the familiar Friends song starts playing.

And then somewhere in there, he starts to really tune out. The snatches of on-screen conversation he’d been listening to start to fade. Dean moves a bit, not twitchy, but fidgety, like they both are sometimes. Sam’s got hair threatening to go in his mouth, so he shifts his head, muttering something incomprehensible, even to himself, and turns his body a bit, pressing the top of his head against Dean’s neck. Dean smothers quiet laughter and a hand nudges Sam’s head, presumably so it’s a more comfortable position for both of them. Sam can’t really bring himself to care. He forgets to pay attention to his breathing pattern, but it stays slow all the same. The tension he hadn’t realized was still stuck between his shoulder blades eases, and he squishes his face more against Dean. And somewhere in there, between Dean patting Sam’s knee absentmindedly and the noise blaring from the tv, Sam falls asleep.

* * *

“Dude,” Dean says, shaking him awake, “are the rings supposed to move like that?”

Sam blinks and offers an eloquent, “Huh?” He leans away from Dean and scrubs at his eyes.

“The rings, the symbol things moved.”

“Hmm?” Sam hums, bringing his hand up to look at it. He’s gotten used to wearing it, working around it, and taking it off when he’s doing the dishes, so it’s startling to see that the symbols around the ring have switched positions, the outer part of the ring rotated around and expanded outward, with a new ring—so thin Sam almost misses it—around the gem itself. The new ring has tiny tick marks around it, minute-marks-on-a-clock style.

Sam stares at the ring for a long moment, considering it, and then rolls his shoulders, “I dunno.”

“Isn’t this in that book somewhere?”

“Maybe,” Sam shrugs, “Don’t remember anything about it, but I mostly skimmed it.”

“Yeah, well, you get more out of skimming something than I do reading it, so guess that’s a no-go,” Dean says, reaching up to stretch, hitting his head against the wall with a _thunk._

Rolling his eyes, Sam says, “That’s not true. But . . . maybe . . .” he trails off and stands up, walking over to his desk to look for the book. He finds it underneath a stack of reference cards.

He flips the book open to the _long-term touch section_ , stomach squirming and his cheeks preemptively heating up.

“Um, it does say, ‘Long-term touch is most beneficial toward generating energy,’ so, uh . . . I kinda fell asleep on you there, so maybe . . .”

“What,” Dean says, crossing his arms, “the rings want us to _cuddle_ now?”

Sam shrugs and turns to put the book on the desk so he can hide the way Dean’s phrasing makes him squirm, “It just says _touching_ , Dean.”

“Touching schmuching,” Dean waves it off, “your damn rings want us to get our snuggle on.”

Screwing up his face, Sam throws his hands up, exasperated, “Yeah, sure. Whatever.”

“Does it at least do something different now?” Dean asks, swinging his legs off the bed and flexing his fingers in front of him, tilting the ring under the light.

“How would I know?” Sam asks, something twisting in his gut and making him regret everything.

Dean points a finger at Sam’s door, and before Sam can even think, he’s deliberately saying, “Duluth.”

Sam’s door slams shut violently and Sam flinches so hard he actually takes a full step back.

Hand still raised awkwardly in the air, Dean slowly stands up.

“Dean,” Sam finally manages to complain.

“What?” Dean asks, harsh. He moves to open the door and is thwarted by a suddenly visible blue shield hovering in the air around the knob that doesn’t even waver when Dean slams a fist against it.

“C’mon Sam,” Dean says, “you do your thing.”

Sam rolls his eyes and sucks in breath in a count of _one-two-three-four_ before holding his hand out.

“Duluth,” Sam intones, dry.

Nothing happens.

Sam glances at his ring and raises his eyebrows.

“Whoa,” he says, tugging the ring off of his finger so he can examine it up close, “Dean, look at this.”

Dean walks closer and Sam points to a tiny triangular symbol, “Wasn’t this one at the two-o’clock before?”

Frowning, Dean glances at Sam’s ring, then his own, “Yeah. Yeah it was.”

“Huh,” Sam says, irritation forgotten as he moves to grab a piece of paper and a pen, “How long was I asleep?”

“I dunno,” Dean says, “hour, hour and a half, tops.”

“Okay,” Sam acknowledges, scribbling it down, “So, maybe that middle ring—it’s gotta be a way to measure how much energy the rings are storing, right? It would make sense . . . But there’s gotta be a way to control how much you use at a time . . . And, I mean, we know for sure that the rings share power now, right? They’ve got to, otherwise I could’ve counteracted your lock.”

“That’s all well and good,” Dean says, “but how are we gonna get outta here?”

Sam stops writing for a moment and looks back at Dean, who’s back to sitting on the edge of the bed, arms crossed. He shrugs, “Wait it out, I guess.”

There’s also another option, but he’s not mentioning that, not right now.

* * *

Half an hour later, Dean’s jumpy. He’s started pacing while on-screen, the Friends’ theme song plays _again_.

Sam kind of gets it, but he’s settled in to wait it out. Hopefully the door opens before either of them need the bathroom.

“Okay,” Dean says, kicking at the door one last time before turning around and pointing at Sam, who’s got the soul-mate book open in the middle of a mess of papers on his desk, hunched over it, “We’re getting out of here. If those damn rings want us to cuddle to get outta here, I say we suck it up.”

For a moment, Sam stares at Dean. Then another moment. Then he takes an extra moment to think about all the times Dean’s made fun of him for not following in dad’s oh-so-manly footsteps.

(Then, he cuts himself off and thinks about everything Dean must be worried about if he’s willing to admit to something like this.)

“Alright,” Sam says, “no need to yell about it.”

Dean, ears verging on red, shuffles in place and then cements his jaw.

Sam, feeling the verge of a fight coming on, stands up and moves to the bed, something that reminds him of the electric feeling of the healing magic running just under his skin. He lounges back, trying his best for casual as he opts for a half-lying, half-resting upright on pillows position. He glances expectantly at Dean, who swallows and moves closer before confidently taking the other half of the bed. He swings an arm around Sam and pulls him in, eliciting a sound of confusion.

Sam, for his part, finds himself relaxing almost immediately. They grew up in each others pockets—hell, they still live there. It’s not the first time they’ve shared a bed or huddled together for comfort or warmth or just because it was the only thing they could do, it’s just the first time in a while.

They take a moment to situate themselves. Dean seems determined that Sam shouldn’t be able to look at him, and he follows his lead, ducking his head and sliding down the bed a bit. His head ends up in the divot between Dean’s arm and chest, and he wraps an arm across Dean’s stomach, letting his feet hang off the end of the bed. Shuffling, Dean repositions his arm, forcing Sam to move his head in closer to Dean’s chest and put more of his weight on Dean instead of on his side.

A few more shuffling movements and they still. Sam stares at the wall while Joey and Chandler fight over something he didn’t ever catch. He vaguely wishes he had a book.

It’s just Dean. It’s just them.

He can’t see Dean’s face, but he does feel how Dean traces a hand up his back, pausing for a long time over a spot to the left of Sam’s spine. Sam wonders why, and then he remembers a _long_ time ago, when he’d gotten a knife wedged in there and died in Dean’s arms. No scar anymore, just the mental ones.

His throat gets tight and he brushes his thumb across Dean’s side, smoothing out his shirt. Day thirty-four, when he’d still been keeping track, an arrow from the archery range gone wild had lodged itself there. That had been a slow death, one of the more horrific ones, where Sam called for help and Dean choked out last words just before the ambulance showed up and the sound of its sirens changed to _Heat of the Moment._

Sam shudders lightly, and Dean raises his shoulder.

“You okay?” He asks, fidgeting with the ends of Sam’s hair.

“Yeah,” Sam says, breathing it out, “all good.”

Sam’s left arm is underneath him, and Dean’s is behind him, so he can’t glance at the rings. He wishes he’d switched it to his other hand.

“Why’s this work anyway?” Dean asks, reaching over to the nightstand to turn down the tv.

“The . . . touching thing?” Sam clarifies, waiting for Dean to hum in affirmation before continuing, “From what I can tell it’s—so, souls are energy, right? That’s why heaven and hell want them so much, it’s power in raw form. Angels, they . . . I think they work like rechargeable batteries, and I know that sounds bad but—”

“When Cas lost his powers,” Dean interrupts, “he was cut off from heaven. He was being drained.”

“Yeah, basically,” Sam shrugs as best he can, “so, demons want more power, angels want more power, humans have that power, but we can’t really use it unless we have a way to tap into it.”

“Like . . . When Henry came forward in time. He said he had to recharge his soul.”

Sam nods, chin digging in slightly just under Dean’s collarbone, “But with, uh . . . With,” he rushes through the word, “ _soulmates_ , there’s uh, a connection between them that constantly generates this kind of . . . excess energy. It just generally gets put into the world without acting upon anything unless there’s something to put it into a useable form.”

“Like a battery pack,” Dean says, tapping his finger against Sam’s spine so he can feel the ring digging in.

Sam nods again, “At least that’s what I got from the book and things. Some of it goes over my head though, so who knows.”

“Huh,” Dean says, “triangle was at eleven-o’clock, yeah?”

“Yeah, is it—”

“It’s at twelve now, I think. I didn’t notice it moving, but it’s glowing like crazy.”

Sam wiggles until he frees his other arm and can bend it in front of him to look at the ring. Crazy is a bit of an overstatement, but it’s definitely brighter than it has been.

“Huh,” Sam says, “maybe we’re on to something.”

* * *

They get out eventually, Dean’s lock powering down before Sam even tries to use the rings.

That night, Sam manages to read through the lines of a Georgia news article and after dinner they head out to go hunting for a plant monster that’s trapping hikers venus fly trap style.

This time, Dean’s the one to serve as a distraction as Sam goes to torch the monster, digging in under the spikes to reach the bulby roots. Sam feels a little bad for killing the thing up until the moment it snags his brother and drags him down a slope toward its mouth.

Sam finally hits the tap root and does his best to douse the thing in gasoline before dropping a match. The plant never makes a sound, but it writhes like it would be shrieking if it had vocal cords. Sam has to chop his way out of a ball of twitching leaves with the head of his shovel and spots Dean clinging onto a tree growing off the side of a nearly vertical slope. Sam clambers up to the top of the hill and reaches down, pulling Dean up and crushing him in a hug.

Dean’s ankle is screwy, so Sam places a hand on it, says, “ _Castle Storage_ ,” and has to blink the afterimage of light away after his ring nearly blinds him.

They’re ready to get out of the mountains, so they wind up driving to Atlanta for the Hard Rock Cafe, and Sam finds them a case in Indiana.

Halfway there, they stop alongside the road, bedding down for the night, both of them running on fumes from the plant monster case.

In the safety of the car, Sam gathers his spread-eagle gutsiness and decides to address the thing that’s been pinballing around in his brain since Dean locked them in Sam’s room.

“Dean?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s . . . It’s good having the rings as backup.”

“Yeah.”

“I think—it would probably be good to keep them charged up, if we can.”

Dean’s silent for a long moment, and they listen to the sound of a car speeding past their hiding spot in a copse of trees.

“Think so too,” Dean finally says.

They both settle in to sleep after that, and Sam runs his hand through his hair, tugging just enough to be painful.

* * *

Indianna is a problem. There’s a guy—everyone around town calls him “AJ”— and he’s gotten hooked on some psychic enhancing potion.

He’s killing people based on his fevered premontions, and it takes them four days to catch up with him. Four days where he keeps hurting people because he thinks he’s doing it in the name of good.

In the end, Sam manages to piece together the pattern, running on coffee and anxiety alone.

Sam finds him first, Dean walking around the back of the house of one of the people who’d messaged AJ’s younger sister a “kill yourself” message just before she committed suicide.

AJ’s a young guy, early twenties, college kid with a promising future. He’s shaking, and his eyes are a murky, ethereal blue when he turns to look at Sam instead of the kid he’s threatening with a gun.

“STOP,” the kid shouts, flinging a hand Sam’s direction.

Sam stops and lowers his gun.

“AJ?” He questions, spreading his arms to look less threatening, “Hey man, can you put down the gun?”

“NO!” AJ roars, his whole body vibrating with his juiced up powers.

“Okay,” Sam says, crouching down to put down his own gun, “okay. That’s fine. I’m just here to talk.”

AJ swallows, and Sam thinks his eyes flicker, just a bit, away from that grey-blue swirl.

“My name’s Sam, you’re AJ, right?”

The kid on the floor in front of AJ’s gun whimpers, and Sam glances upward to see Dean move stealthily to the upper floor, where he’d have an easy shot if AJ goes nuclear.

“What’s it to you?”

“Look man, I’m just trying to make sure no one else gets hurt, alright?”

“You don’t _get it_ ,” AJ pants, gesturing with the gun, “he _killed her_.”

“He played a part in it,” Sam says, shuffling forward just a step, “no denying that. So did a lot of other people. But AJ, trying to get revenge? Going down this path? It just leads to more people hurting.”

“I don’t care!” AJ says, darting his gaze back and forth between Sam and the high-schooler crying on his parent’s hardwood floor.

Sam inhales sharply and makes a decision.

“I think you do,” Sam says, “I think you care so much that it hurt enough for you to need something else to take away the pain.”

AJ’s snarl falters at that, a quick shift in facial expression, and Sam knows he’s got his game.

“Look, I’ve been where you are kid. I know . . .” he deliberately doesn’t glance up at Dean, “I know what it’s like to lose a sibling. How it feels like your whole world’s gone from under your feet,” he shuffles a bit closer, trying to focus AJ on him, “I know how much it hurts, how much easier it is when you get your fix. It’s the only thing in the world that gives you an ounce of control over your life, right?”

AJ turns toward him more, jaw wobbling, “You don’t know me.”

“No,” Sam admits, moving half a step forward, “But I’ve been you. The uh, the potion, it gives you something to cling to. It makes the world make sense again. It’s not an _addiction_ , it’s like oxygen at this point, you feel like you need it to get through every second of this crappy life. But it’s hurting people, AJ, you’re hurting people. And whenever something makes you realize that, you have to push back, you have to hurt that thing. That potion and revenge, that’s all that matters now, right? She’s gone, so what do you have to lose?”

“Shut up,” AJ says, voice verging on a whisper as the wispy clouds in his eyes start to clear.

“Even if she came back somehow, it would be the same story. These people hurt her, and that hurt you, and you have no control so you take it back by wanting to hurt them. You know that’s wrong, like you knew lying to your parents was wrong and taking that first potion was wrong, but you can’t stop. You can’t, because that means your world will be gone again.”

For the first time, the gun strays from the target’s face, and Sam takes a risky step forward, then another. He’s within reach, and he gently grabs the gun by the barrel and points it down before tugging it out of AJ’s lax grip and putting it on the floor. AJ is frozen in place, staring somewhere to the side of Sam.

Sam looks up and jerks his head at Dean, who moves quickly down the steps as Sam hooks an arm around AJ’s shoulders. He pulls AJ out of the house, quickly, as Dean reaches the football player and starts unknotting the ropes around his wrists.

The second they reach fresh air, AJ crumples, a horrific, wounded animal sound ripping itself from his throat. Sam steadies him for a moment and then follows him down to the ground on the front porch and shakes along with him. Maybe a few tears drop from his eyes too.

It’s only minutes after when Dean rushes out, saying, “Gotta get outta here before the cops show up. Family’s fine.”

Sam nods and glances down at AJ, who’s choking on his sobs. He maneuvers himself around and hauls AJ up with him. In the Impala, he sits in the backseat with him, more because of the fact that the kid’s holding onto his coat with a death grip than anything else.

He meets Dean’s gaze in the rearview and shrugs helplessly. Dean turns his head away and starts up the Impala. They drive for a long time, long enough that Sam knows that AJ’s shaking is more than grief. He quietly tells Dean to pull over so AJ can puke on the side of the road. The next town they pass through, Dean pulls into the worst motel Sam’s spotted in a long time and they get a room.

Sam tells Dean that he doesn’t need to stay for this. Dean leaves and comes back with food before leaving again.

AJ’s fever spikes around five in the morning, and Sam piles wet clothes on his face. Around six, he tries to get him hydrated, and it stays down, so he calls it a success. AJ keeps talking to him like he’s his dad.

Sam’s glad Dean’s not there for most of it, because there’s more than a single tear that falls that doesn’t belong to AJ.

* * *

Dean shakes him awake some time after noon and gifts him a coffee and the fact that he’d called Garth and the werewolves are willing to take in a psychic with anger issues.

When AJ wakes up, coherent, they pack up and head to Wisconsin.

It’s an awkward ride. Sam’s glad when it’s over, even it it means being accosted by Garth and forced to hang around for food and such because, apparently, it’s somehow already Christmas.

They finally get to duck out, and Sam leaves AJ his numbers. Tells him to call for _whatever_.

Dean starts driving, playing AC/DC at top volume. Somewhere in Iowa, he pulls over to the side of the road.

Sam braces himself for a painful discussion, but instead gets Dean grabbing the back of his head and pulling him in. Dean kisses his forehead, then leans back and touches his own to Sam’s, eyes closed. Sam stays awkwardly hunched over, a little shocky. Dean’s thumb brushes over Sam’s temple, and he’s a little surprise to find himself shaking.

At some point, Dean lets go of his head, pats the side of Sam’s face roughly, and shifts back into gear.

* * *

They stop by Jody’s just to say hi and return her tupperware (and get more in return, meatballs in marinara), and then head back to the bunker.

Sam settles into bed early, light still on, just staring at the wall.

Dean knocks sometime around ten, and Sam can’t even really bother to raise his head in his direction. Without a word, Dean shoves him over and settles on the bed, one hand landing square on Sam’s back.

“If you wanna talk,” Dean says after a while of them just breathing in the silence, “I’ll try to listen.”

Sam scrapes a hand down the side of his face and is vaguely glad he’s not facing Dean for this.

“The thing,” he says, voice rough with something tight, “the thing is. It doesn’t just go away.” He huffs the saddest laugh he can remember laughing, “You’d think . . . it’s so long ago now, you’d think I’d have forgotten. But I haven’t. How it made me feel. The power. And sometimes I just want to feel that again.”

The admission hovers between them, and then Dean clears his throat.

“Sometimes,” he says, softly, “I get a knife in my hand and a monster in my sight and all I want to do is torture it ‘till it begs. It sounds like the most calming thing in the world.”

Sam inhales sharply and then lets the tension in his back go. They stay like that for a while, and then Dean leans over him to turn out the light, settling right back into place.

* * *

In Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, a dozen different families find themselves a surprise windfall in a suspiciously tight time period, enough that local newspapers are joking about the lucky nature of the town.

It stinks of witchcraft, so they pack the car. Long drive—no deaths, and no sign of violence, so they don’t rush it. They spend the night in the car, and Sam’s back aches with it after, and his heart aches with uncertainty at their unspoken agreement. It hovers between them, less malevolent than a lot of things they’ve held in the gaps, but just as uncomfortable.

Once they reach their destination—practically in Jersey, and halfway through the third round of Dean’s favorite tapes—they stop at a motel, and Dean walks up to the desk while Sam pulls out their things.

Dean walks back out, some tension between his eyebrows when he hands Sam the keycard.

“Hey, I’m gonna go grab some food,” Dean says, clapping him on the shoulder, “be right back.”

And Sam, two duffles on his shoulders and another two at his feet, gapes as his brother does an abrupt about-face and starts walking away.

“Dean,” he sighs, exasperated, as he’s abandoned with their luggage. No surprise though. It’s Dean and food.

He hefts the weapon bags up, glances at the room number on the little paper envelope, and starts walking up the rickety metal stairs, only cursing Dean out a little bit along the way.

For a long moment, he’s stuck outside the door while trying to get the key to slide into the slot, but he finally manages it and shoves the door open. It’s dark inside, and he flicks on the lights.

Only one bed.

Sam refuses to get caught up in the confusing wave of emotion that threatens to bubble up in his chest and starts setting things down, unzipping bags and shrugging off his jacket. The bed sits there, in the middle of the room. Small. Way too small. They’re two grown-ass men, for hell’s sake. And there’s no way the motel is actually booked, the Impala only has a tiny Camry keeping it company in the lot.

Dean does this sometimes. Testing boundaries. It’s the same thing he’s been doing, the pretended absent-mindedness of his friendly touches whenever he and Sam are in the same room, the way he waits for Sam to make the first move when they’re sharing a bed.

It was a strange thing for Sam to realize that Dean has as much distrust of the world as Sam does. That insecurity about how real things are, not knowing when something rubbery and slick will reach the end of its stretch and snap back.

Sam wiggles his toes in his boots, pulls out his laptop, and settles into the only chair in the room, casually kitty-corner to the bed. He’s gotten better at not overthinking things in the past little while. It’s so easy for him to get caught up in something and feel the need to chew and gnaw at it until he worked it all the way over.

Dean helps. Dean makes him think about other things, shifts his focus easy, painless.

* * *

The only connection Sam can find between the families is the fact that at least one female relation of the families is on the same Facebook group page as all the others.

_Fort Worth Knitting Club_

He and Dean rock-paper-scissors over it, and Sam’s so confident in his win that he doesn’t even register the fact that Dean flattens his flat hand over Sam’s rock with a loud cheer until he’s being forced to message the Facebook group to ask if they welcome beginners to the knitting scene.

(He’s welcomed and celebrated so excessively that he almost fears for his life when Dean drops him at the curb of the local community center with his newly purchased needles and yarn.)

None of the ladies seem to scream witch at him—there’s about six grandmotherly types, two of whom flirt with him enough to turn him almost permanently pink as they guide him through the basics of casting on, and the rest are middle-aged moms who bring their children along to play in the rec center part of the building while they gossip and knit. Everyone’s interested in Sam, but he doesn’t think it’s out of malice, more just the fact that he’s definitely the single most interesting thing that’s ever happened to this club. He tries his best to mix in the truth with all of his lying—he’s moved in here with his brother, no neither of them are married, no he’s not gay and hiding it, they’re contractors working with local businesses to improve security—and the list stretches on and on.

They meet three times a week, and in-between meetings, he and Dean investigate. Somehow, Dean picks up a temp job at a local auto shop just by stopping by with the Impala.

Nothing shows up, but a gal who joins the club a week after Sam wins some kind of lottery and is gone the next week. It doesn’t make sense, and it sure as hell isn’t coincidence.

One of Dean’s coworkers has a falling out with his roommates, so he and Dean move into his apartment for the time being. Sam’s a little worried about it, but the guy turns out to be Wiccan, so he’s pretty chill about the salt lines and ritual knives they leave lying about.

Also about the fact that sometimes when one of them wakes up screaming, the other crawls into bed with him.

And also about the whole glowing ring schtick.

Rodrigo’s just generally cool.

Sam’s day job, when he isn’t obsessively researching spells and creatures that could dole out the fortunes that keep popping up or driving back to the bunker for some scrying object or another, becomes keeping his cover. Judy Hale, one of the older ladies from the knitting group, has a son who’s on the board for local business growth, and he hires Sam and Dean’s fake company on the grounds of “his mother said Sam was a good guy,” so Sam learns how to run and manage a small security company in a couple days’ crash course.

It’s an absolute mess, and Dean’s having the time of his life with it, so Sam’s happy.

Dean works rotating four-tens, so when he doesn’t have to work and Sam doesn’t have to fake work, they pick up small jobs in nearby areas—the easy stuff, ghosts and poltergeists and one really odd black dog case.

One month in, Sam’s learned how to knit hats and scarves and what a left twist is, and they’re no closer to figuring out this puzzle. Campbell Security gets four new customers when Judy’s son raves about Sam on some forum, Dean gets hired on for a non-temp position, and Rodrigo figures out that they’re hunters and is somehow also cool with that.

So, of course, it’s the perfect time for Sam to get a phone call from a bank looking for the inheritor of the _Magnus_ account.

Sam drives all the way to New York to meet with a bank representative who informs him that their systems recently updated and found _Sam Campbell_ listed as the willed inheritor to several large accounts.

Sam has a mild freak out, is on edge through the entire meeting, waiting for the trap to spring, and walks out with a terrifyingly large amount of money transferred to his (fake) name.

“Dean,” he says when he exits the building, “whatever this curse is, it got me too.”

* * *

They run the numbers a few times, and Sam pulls out a few Men of Letters books. Dean mutters, “Million? Million?” under his breath a few hundred times.

“We have to figure this out,” Sam says, “it’s been nice, but there’s something wrong with this town, and it’s all going to come crashing down, and now it’s gonna take me with it.”

“I dunno Sammy,” Dean says, “makes sense that the Men of Letters had some moolah tucked away somewhere. Makes less sense that it was growing interest all these years, but whatever.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t make sense that they had my contact information or my fake name,” Sam stresses, “Whatever this curse is is powerful enough to change an entire bank’s system.”

Dean shrugs, and Rodrigo enters the kitchen, mostly naked, and grabs his box of cereal and starts eating it right out of the bag.

“‘Sup fellas,” he says by way of greeting.

“Hey,” Sam says, kneading at his forehead where a ball of stress keeps growing.

“You look stressed,” Rodrigo says, “I’ve got a crystal that might help with that.”

“He’s not stressed,” Dean offers, “just overwhelmed.”

“I’m _right here_ ,” Sam bites out, slamming his hands on the table.

Taking it in stride, Rodrigo leans against the counter, “Overwhelmed with what?”

“Just found out we’re inheriting a large fortune from our grandfather’s defunct secret society,” Dean says, shoveling a forkful of scrambled eggs into his mouth.

“Oh,” Rodrigo says, raising his eyebrows, “that’s legit.”

Sam drops his head to the table.

“Sounds like a lot of people in town are getting lucky like that recently. Everyone except Mike Brewer.”

Sam raises his head.

“Mike Brewer?”

“Yeah,” Rodrigo says, taking a moment to swallow his cereal, “big ol’ billionaire type guy, keeps loosing a lot of his money for whatever reason while everyone else seems to be doing great.”

Sam and Dean share a look. It’s a lead they can work with.

* * *

If Sam’s estimations are correct, Mike Brewer has lost exactly the same amount as his approximation for how much the knitting club’s made. It gives him an area to research, and he dives right in.

At some point, Dean rolls over on his twin bed and waves a hand in the vague direction of the light from Sam’s laptop.

“What about the rings?”

“ _What_ about the rings?” Sam asks, preoccupied.

“We’ve seen people find things with magic, why can’t we do the same?”

Sam’s typing stills and he stares off into the distance.

“I’m an idiot,” he says aloud, not bothering to be quiet for Rodrigo’s sake. “I’m an idiot. An absolute idiot.”

“Yeah, well, we all are at one point or another,” Dean mumbles tiredly, “Can you bemoan that fact tomorrow? I gotta be up in six hours.”

Sam shuts his laptop down and settles in to sleep, but is so restless that Dean tosses his pillow at his face before following it and smushing Sam into the bed with his body weight, whispering threats of violence next to Sam’s ear if he doesn’t _go the hell to sleep_. Sam falls asleep pretty quickly after that, even though breathing is a bit of an issue while Dean’s crushing his lungs.

* * *

 _“Nancy Garcia,_ ” Sam whispers as he enters the community center the next morning, first one in since the rec department opened it up a few minutes ago. Good old Nancy, she’d been one of dad’s contacts back in the day. Renowned for her finding skills until she got murdered by shifters a few years before Sam headed off to school.

His ring lights up, and he follows the insistent tugging that accompanies the whispered incantation. The tug pulls him away from the main entrance and back toward the knitting circle. Once there, his arm pulls up and Sam glances at the ceiling, squinting his eyes. _There._

There’s a small symbol, hidden in the cracking paint of the old building. Sam whispers, “ _Garcia Nancy,_ ” and the tugging stops. He pulls out his phone and snaps a few pictures before settling into his seat. Soon enough, the first few group members trickle in. Sam pulls out his half-finished hat and starts chatting.

* * *

He and Dean figure out a way to stop the spell from affecting anyone else, with help from Rodrigo, and only after they discuss the pros and cons of socialism and capitalism for an _extensive_ period of time.

And apparently _Marxism_ is a trigger word for the rings to pickpocket someone—possibly because of their associations with pretending to read a book on communism while searching out people to pickpocket in a library back on a hunt for witches with dad in the late nineties.

Sam _really_ doesn’t want to think about that in any other way than the shallow one, so he shamefully returns Rodrigo’s wallet once he realizes he has it.

After that, it’s just a matter of cleansing the room, damaging the sigil, and painting over it. On their way out, Sam glances back at the room and feels a weird pang in his stomach. He turns the lights out and follows Dean to the already-packed and ready-to-go car.

Rodrigo texts them a week later, when they’re following the path of a harpy across northern Montana, and lets them know that he did, in fact, find new roommates, and that he misses them already.

Sam uses the time they spend travelling up and down back roads to finish his hat. It’s immensely ugly, a weird off-green color, and lopsided, so he happily dubs it “The Ugly-ass Hat,” and gifts it to Dean as his birthday present when it doesn’t seem like they’re going to make it back to civilization before the end of the month.

Dean begrudgingly wears it when they go out hunting for the harpy, lacking a winter hat of his own, and it makes everything about trekking out in a snowstorm to murder a bird-lady much more bearable.

On the way back to Kansas, Sam picks up a cough and a runny nose. By the time they make it back to the bunker, he’s running a fever, and Dean’s convinced himself that Sam’s dying—and Sam’s not that far from agreeing with him. He’s put on bed rest and does exactly that. When he’s not dead to the world, he’s eating soup or saltines or choking down the fluids Dean forces on him or watching mindless tv. It’s one of the many things he and Dean have in common—when they’re sick, they just want to shut down. (It’s only recently that that’s even been an option.)

Dean’s voice wakes him up, echoing in the distance because the bunker is just _like that_ and his _door is open_ and he’s _freezing_.

“He’s got the martian death flu, but I’ll see if I can wake him up,” Dean says, and a garbled voice replies. Sam buries his head further into his pillow and curls up into an even tighter ball of misery.

Dean’s boots clomp into his room, and then there’s a hand on his shoulder, shaking him lightly.

“Hey Sam, Jody’s on the phone. She’s got a question about some symbols Claire’s trying to figure out on a hunt. Thought I’d see if you recognized it before I go searching. Sam. C’mon, you’re awake, even if you don’t wanna be.”

Sam groans into his pillow and tries to swear at Dean, but he’s not really sure if he’s successful.

Dean steals his blankets, and Sam nearly shrieks—would’ve, if he didn’t have to cough so badly.

After his coughing fit is over, Dean hands him back his covers and Sam rolls over, bringing up arm to rest against his forehead.

“Hey Sam,” Jody says on the video call. Dean’s pointing the camera Sam’s way and he bats it away.

“Hey Jody,” He mumbles back, talking around his plugged nose.

“Sorry to hear that you’re sick,” Jody continues, “Dean just thought you might recognize these symbols faster than he could find them.”

Sam pushes himself into a semi-sitting position, everything aching, and holds out his hands for the phone.

Jody’s face disappears from the screen, the view switching to a couple of notebook drawings. Sam squints at the screen and shivers.

“Yeah,” Sam says, coughing again, “looks like Coptic. Something about fire? Probably third century stuff, not too old.”

Dean nods as he takes the phone back, “Cool, that’s a place for me to start. Where’s the translation stuff for Egyptian?”

“Third shelf, bottom row,” Sam says, slumping back into his pillow.

“Hope you feel better soon,” Jody calls as Dean leaves the room. Sam can’t bring himself to respond, curling back into his misery ball.

He doesn’t fall back asleep right away, so he rolls over and turns Netflix on. Nothing on his watchlist looks good, and his brain is foggy enough that he doesn’t want to watch anything that forces him to engage with it too much, so he clicks on the first brightly colored recommendation he sees, and that’s how he finds himself sobbing over Queer Eye when Dean returns to his room with a tray of soup and crackers.

“Sammy, buddy,” Dean says, setting the tray down on the bedside table and sitting next to Sam on the bed, “hey, you okay?”

Sam nods from behind his wad of tissues, and sniffles.

Dean reaches out a hand and places it on his forehead, “Fever’s spiking again, huh?”

Shrugging, Sam refocuses on the tv, tucking his blanket even tighter around his neck, “He’s doing _so much better_ , Dean, _so much_.”

Pulling his hand back, Dean nods, distracted, “He sure is.”

For some reason, that offends Sam deeply, and he rolls over just enough to face Dean, staring him down as well as he can from his relative position.

“He’s getting _better_ ,” he emphasizes, doing his best not to cough, “in all parts of his life.”

Dean reaches out again and brushes sweat-slick hair off of Sam’s forehead, smiling a bit, “Oh-kay. Do you know you get kinda delirious when you have a fever?”

Sam kind of wants to throw Dean’s hand off him and go back to his crying, but it feels nice when Dean tucks his hair back behind his ears, so he doesn’t.

“How ‘bout we try some more Campbell’s and crackers and see where we are, alright?” Dean asks, patting Sam on the chest.

“You should watch this,” Sam says, his brain too foggy to make his point, but he knows it’s important, “it’s nice.”

“Okay, you eat this soup and I’ll watch, uh,” Dean picks up the remote and clicks to see the title, “ _Queer Eye_ —Queer Eye?” he shakes his head, “I’ll watch an episode of this with you, sound good?”

Sam nods and forces himself upright, “Yeah, yeah, alright.”

He finishes his soup and half a sleeve of crackers before he lays back down, curling so his head is tucked against Dean’s hip.

Dean’s hand finds his hair again, and that’s how Sam falls asleep.

* * *

Not a day after Sam’s up and around again, Dean’s immune system fails him, and they switch roles. And rooms. Dean refuses to leave the tv, so Sam sweats through his nights on too-warm memory foam.

Dean finishes Queer Eye before Sam does and steals one of Sam’s notebooks to sketch out ideas for remodeling parts of the bunker with the money they’ve just left sitting around in the back of their minds.

* * *

Sam decides that IKEA is a maze. It’s the labyrinth. It’s got to be a liminal portal or _something_.

His phone buzzes in his pocket as he walks down an aisle with bookshelves and he pulls it out. It’s Jody video-calling him.

He answers, blinking a bit at the state of his hair when he sees his own face in the corner.

“Hey Jody,” he says, passing a cart without a driver, “how’s it going?”

“Hey Sam, things are good here, how’re you? Feeling better?”

“Yeah, lots. I’m . . . currently lost in IKEA, so guess I’m doing fine.”

Jody laughs a bit, and the screen freezes for a second before catching up.

“What are you doing at IKEA? Ghost in the couch section?”

“Uh, no,” Sam says, distracted as he turns his head to try and figure out where he’s headed, “I made Dean watch one episode of Queer Eye and now we’re remodeling the Bunker, so…”

Jody starts laughing again, and she doesn’t stop until he’s halfway down another aisle. He tries not to grin too weirdly as he passes another customer who looks as lost as he feels.

“Well, just wanted to call and check in and ask about fairies?”

“Real,” Sam confirms, used to playing this game, “Not usually a huge problem, some big mass spell that sealed off the courts a while back. Still around causing mischief sometimes though.”

“Good to know,” Jody says, “Well, if you’re both up and walking, I’ll let you get back to wandering around.”

“Thanks,” Sam says dryly, “If you never see me again, I got eaten by the couch monsters.”

Jody laughs and says goodbye, and then Sam spots the back of a familiar head, resisting the urge to run Dean over with the cart.

“Find the lamp you were looking for?” Dean asks when Sam maneuvers closer.

Nodding, Sam taps the box, “Yeah.”

“Cool. I’m thinking either this couch,” he sits dramatically, “or . . . this one,” he moves to sit on the other, “thoughts?”

Sam glances between them, “I like the blue better.”

“Me too,” Dean says, “put it on the list.”

* * *

Time in-between hunts is spent doing the Winchester version of remodeling. Sam’s hesitant to destroy the original _anything,_ and Dean agrees once he hears the arguments about unknown warding and sigils. When they get back from a ghost case in Cincinnati, they spend a few long hours listening to Aretha Franklin while they puzzle over IKEA instructions. Sam only winds up with two screws he’s not sure what he was supposed to do with, and Dean only throws up his hands and leaves once, so they call it a success.

Sam’s room gets a little more decor than he’s comfortable with, so he resigns himself to slowly taking the things off the walls and out of the room when Dean’s not paying attention.

The new mattress is nice though. No heat-soaked memory foam, just . . . new.

So when they charge up the rings for the next hunt, arms around each other while they watch tv or leaning against the other while they sleep, it’s easy. There’s something—a privacy to the bunker—that Sam though would never return after Lucifer—

Well, it’s settling into his bones, ready for the next time it leaves.


	3. Vulnerability

The light buzzing of his phone is what wakes him up. He untangles himself from the arm and leg Dean’s got swung over him and reaches for the phone. He glances at the screen and doesn’t recognize the number, but slides the answer button all the same.

Groggily, he says, “Hello?”

“Is—is this Sam?” The voice is familiar, but Sam can’t place it. Beside him, Dean snorts and rolls over.

“Yeah, who’s this?”

“Uh, Adrien. AJ. The—uh, the—”

Sam wipes sleep away from his eyes and sits up, “Yeah, hey. Sorry, still half-asleep.”

“I didn’t mean to wake you up,” AJ says, “I’m sorry.”

“No, no,” Sam swings his legs over the edge of the bed, “You’re good. What’s up?”

“I. . . I had a vision,” AJ blurts out, “About, about you. And you should—you should know.”

Sam flips on his lamp and grabs a piece of paper and a pencil. Dean wakes up and makes an inquiring noise, but Sam shushes him with hand motions, “Okay, go ahead.”

AJ takes a deep, shaky breath, “There’s, there’s monsters looking for you and your brother. There’s one—a, Garth called it a shifter? It’s the ringleader. There’s a couple of vampires, some rogue werewolves . . . Some others I didn’t—I’m not sure—”

“Okay,” Sam says, scribbling down quick notes, “that’s great, that’s good to know. Is there anything else?”

“They, they said they had a plan to—to lure you out so they can, so they can kill you. They sounded serious, and Garth says they don’t usually work together, so if they are, it’s a big deal and—”

“Yeah, yeah it is. Thank you for telling me,” Sam says, keeping his voice steady, “Is there anything else?”

There’s a small pause, and then AJ says, “No-no. I think—I think that’s everything.”

“Great,” Sam says, adding a few dots over his I’s, “if anything else pops up, send it my way, alright?”

“Yeah—yeah, I can do that.”

“So, how’re you liking life with the pack?” Sam asks, feeling his own chest tighten as AJ struggles to control his panic.

“What? Oh, oh, it’s—it’s good. I’m—I’m good.”

“That’s good to hear,” Sam says, smacking Dean’s hand away when he reaches for the notes, “feel free to call back anytime, alright?”

“Okay,” AJ says, a little more control in his voice, “thank you.”

“Thank _you_ ,” Sam replies, “it’s always nice to have good people on the team.”

Sam can nearly hear the way AJ’s throat must click before he issues a quick, “Bye.”

“Yeah, uh-huh, bye,” Sam says, hanging up.

“What was that?” Dean asks, leaning on one arm.

“The latest crisis,” Sam replies with a sigh, tossing the notebook back on the table and switching the light off, “and,” he flops back down, “it’s tomorrow’s problem.”

Dean tries to say something about it, but Sam slaps a hand over his mouth and they get caught up in a weird slap-war that ends with them turning their backs to each other and pressing their shoulder blades together, Dean grumbling about sleeping by Sam being like sleeping right next to a furnace.

* * *

There’s not much they can do except prepare for the worst, so they get back to work.

Sam does something absolutely dumb when they stop in Phoenix for the night, both of their backs complaining about the nights spent in the Impala. Just because they’re familiar with the ache doesn’t mean it isn’t there and doesn’t make them sound like a couple of popcorn poppers when they stretch in the morning.

He makes the excuse that he wants to check out a couple things at a local museum and Dean waves him off, halfway through a box of chinese takeout. Sam takes a moment to feel guilty for lying, for making himself a hypocrite, but he knows Dean would talk him out of it, would reason with him.

It’s not that Sam knows there’s no guarantee the symbol won’t work as a tattoo, not really. He thinks it will, has read through the book a million times over, but it’s not about that. It’s about the fact that it’s the thing tying them together.

He finds a walk-in tattoo place and pulls out his sketches.

* * *

It’s not even half an hour after he gets back that Dean clues into Sam’s new tat, glancing suspiciously at the way Sam holds himself and then grabbing his arm and tugging his outer shirt off to expose the bandage.

“Sam,” Dean growls, “What. Is. This?”

Pulling away from Dean’s grip, Sam juts his jaw out, “A new tattoo.”

“I can see that,” Dean says, eyes narrowed, “Of what?”

For a split second, Sam thinks about not telling—about lying—and then dismisses it. Dean’s going to see it eventually in the end.

“The ring symbol,” he says, evenly, moving to grab his sweats out of his bag.

“As in the magic rings?” Dean asks, still staring Sam down.

Sam shrugs, “Yeah. Thought I’d test it out, see if it works when it’s not in metal.”

He changes to sweatpants and fishes his aftercare instructions out of his bag now that the cat’s out of it as well.

Dean scowls at him and abruptly grabs his keys and heads out, slamming the door behind him. Sam watches him go, guts writhing, and shudders, just a bit, when the Impala pulls out of the parking lot.

* * *

It’s nearly two in the morning when Dean gets back, and Sam’s wide awake. Dean turns on the lights and stares at Sam when he rolls over to look at him. Dean pulls off his jacket and turns his arm toward Sam. There’s a bandage wrapped around his arm, and Sam can see the plastic peeking out from underneath.

“Dean,” he says, letting it just hover in the air.

Kicking his boots off, Dean heads for the bed, moving to the opposite of his usual side so that Sam is forced to look him in the face or lie on his newly-tattooed arm.

“You’re a dumbass,” Dean says, grabbing at Sam’s elbow and staring at him, “I’ve been thinking about getting it as a tattoo for _months_ and you just go and do it without me?”

“Sorry,” Sam chokes out, “I didn’t think—”

“Yeah,” Dean interrupts, “I know. I swear, for being the smartest person I know, sometimes you’re so stupid.”

Sam curls his fingers in and tucks his hand against Dean’s chest, feeling the pounding of a heartbeat beneath it.

* * *

For whatever reason, the tattoos work even better than the rings. The first time Sam feels it coming to life on his arm, he freaks out a bit, fascinated by the moving ink, and then is even more fascinated by how it seems to power up their spells even more. Sam theorizes that it’s a case of ownership or leftover magical signatures, and Dean just shrugs and practices _Duluth_ on a padlock, trying to figure out how to determine the strength of the magic.

 _Guiness_ turns foods green for a yet unknown reason, so Dean cheerfully serves Sam actual green eggs and ham for breakfast whenever it’s his turn to cook. Sam likes eggs, so he doesn’t complain.

 _Nineteen-ninety-nine_ , the year Sam and Dean spent mostly apart, their dad banning Sam from being actively on the hunt, tugs them toward each other, an invisible thread that’s ridiculously useful when they get separated on a case with a night hag, making sure they can’t lose each other.

And, the one that unnerves them both, _Mr. Nathan, Vonnegut_. It stretches time, making everything else move in slow motion for an indeterminate amount of time. They don’t talk about Mr. Nathan very much after that.

They go on a hunt with Claire and a few of Jody’s hunter friends in North Dakota, and for the first time, Sam really worries about how they should act around others. Too many rumors about them have been passed around, and Sam stresses about it until Dean comes back into their camp from scouting the monster the Winchesters have been referring to as an Ice Naga, as no one can provide a name for them.

Dean, wearing the Ugly-Ass Hat, gets close enough to camp to be heard, and shouts, ”Sam! It’s freezing!”

A couple of the other hunters and Claire laugh at that, and Sam looks up expectantly, leaning over a map spread out on a picnic table. It’s cold out, wind nippy, and he’s not exactly surprised when Dean practically tackles him from behind, shoving his hands into Sam’s hoodie pocket and his face between Sam’s shoulders.

“You cold or something?” Sam asks, grateful he can blame his red ears on the chill in the air.

“Or something,” Dean grumbles.

When Sam has to move, Dean follows along with him, still shivering.

“I take back half the times I complained about you being a crappy space heater,” Dean says as Sam half-drags him him closer to the fire, putting his own hands in his hoodie pocket to find Dean’s acting like ice-blocks.

“Geez, your hands are freezing,” Sam says, shaking off his embarrassment. Everyone’s cold and miserable. He drags one of Dean’s hands out of the pocket and wraps it in his own, rubbing back and forth for friction heat. He vaguely thinks about the fact that Dean’s destroying his own reputation in the hunting community—but then, again, neither of them are that involved anymore anyway.

Asa, who’s an oddly cheerful guy Sam’s pretty sure is in love with Jody, is stoking the fire. He laughs when he sees them.

“Cold or something?” He asks, straightening up from his crouch.

“Sam’s not,” Dean grumbles, moving his face so his chin rests on Sam’s shoulders while they stand next to the fire, “damn furnace.”

Sam wants to retort, but he _is_ only wearing a hoodie and his everyday jacket while everyone else is bundled up for a blizzard, so he doesn’t have a leg to stand on. He just grabs Dean’s other hand and forces him to hold it next to the fire.

Claire looks up from sharpening a knife and makes a weird expression in their general direction, then goes back to her work.

“Alright,” one of the other hunters—Sam never caught his name—calls, “circle up everybody, let’s talk strategy.”

The strategy turns out to be waiting around for the snake to kill them. They’re territorial, according to the locals, so they just have to wait for it to pop up.

Sam drags a log over to the fire to sit on, pulling out his needles and yarn and getting back to work on the scarf he’d started on during the drive up. Dean yawns and disappears for a moment.

“Didn’t know you knitted,” Claire says, wandering over to sit on the extra space on Sam’s log.

Shrugging, Sam pulls the needle under-over-through, “Just started a few months ago for a case.”

“A case?” Claire snorts, and the other three hunters join in.

“Believe it or not, yeah,” Sam says, with his own laugh, “we thought a knitting group was a cover for a coven, but turns out they were just really lucky.”

He leaves out the weirdness of that case, the way it settled in his skin.

Valerie, the hunter Sam _did_ catch the name of, says, “One time my ‘rabid dog’ case turned out to be an actual rabid dog. Those rabies shots _suck_.”

That sets off everyone’s greatest hits for hunting stories, and when Dean comes back with his own log for a seat, he joins in. Sam half-listens, counting stitches as Dean regales everyone with the creepy doll case from years ago, nudging Sam’s ankle with his boot with every strange detail.

Sam’s got the unfinished scarf wrapped around Dean’s neck, trying to measure how many more rows he needs, when the earth shakes underneath them.

Setting down his yarn and needles, Sam reaches behind him for his machete. Dean grabs the blowtorch, and the other hunters follow their example. For a long moment, they stand there, just listening, weapons at the ready.

There’s a rumbling sound, followed by a strange slithering noise that raises the hairs on the back of Sam’s neck. He braces himself for a fight.

Then the ground underneath him goes out from under him and Dean yelps. Sam scrambles back, helped by Claire’s hand grabbing onto his jacket collar. Dean’s not so lucky.

The snake-thing is massive, practically see-through, and glows with white light. If Sam had the time, he’d be fascinated.

But the snake came up out of the ground practically right in front of Dean, and it bites into his leg before Sam can even process the motion. Dean yells in pain, and Sam shouts, “DEAN!”

The snake rears up, and behind him, Asa lets loose a bolt from his crossbow. It lodges itself in the thing's throat, but the snake doesn’t even seem to notice. It dives back down, a hole opening under it just before it hits, and Dean disappears from view.

Sam scrambles to his feet and launches himself toward the new hole.

“Whoa, whoa,” the hunter who organized them calls, moving forward to brace a hand against Sam’s chest to push him back, “slow down.”

The part of Sam’s brain that’s in charge of keeping him sane—the same part so worried about what other people think, about the logistics of existence—is too overwhelmed by the horror Sam feels at Dean’s disappearance. He blames that for why he snarls and holds the point of his machete up, threatening the hunter’s throat.

“It’s got my brother,” he growls, “I’m going after it.”

The hunter backs up, hands spread wide, a spark of fear in his eyes.

Sam ignores it and moves forward, peering down into the hole the snake left behind. He turns abruptly, making Claire move back from where she’d been on his heels. He heads toward the weapons bag, shutting out the other hunters’ chatter. He pulls out a pickaxe and a few metal stakes, dumping it all in his now knitting-less backpack.

“Sam,” Claire says, one hand on his shoulder, “he’s okay.”

Nodding, Sam shrugs off her hand, feeling guilt well in his chest for the brush-off. Claire's too young. She shouldn’t be here.

It doesn’t make him stop her from following him when he sits down at the edge of the hole and slides down. It’s just icy enough, covered in a strange layer of frost, that Sam keeps sliding, even after it flattens out a few yards down. Sam gets to his feet, then helps Claire up. Noise from up above distracts him, and then the other three hunters skid down the slope.

Sam moves to help them up, uncertainty playing around his eyes.

“Look man,” Asa says, brushing off his pants, “I’m not about to lose one of our own out here. Guess we’re with you.”

Sam shares a look with the other hunters, and even the guy he’d threatened with a machete gives him a steady nod.

Nodding back, Sam turns around, head bumping against the top of the tunnel.

“Now we just have to figure out which way the bastard went,” Valerie says, steadying herself on the ice.

“Well,” Sam says, “if it’s got Dean, I can figure out exactly where it is.”

He rolls his shoulder back and holds out his hand.

“Nineteen ninety-nine,” he says, confident, as shuddering as warmth flows from his tattoo down to his fingertips. He feels the invisible weaving thread tangle itself around his fingers, then then tug of it.

“This way,” he says, nodding to the tunnel curving to the right. He hunches down and lets the spell tug him along.

“Is—are you doing some kind of magic?” The hunter—Sam really should figure out his name, but it’s too awkward to ask now—asks.

“Yeah,” Sam says, reaching into his pocket to pull out a flashlight when the tunnel grows too dark to see. Claire has one as well, shining it around the edges of openings they pass, checking for the snake.

There’s no other comments on it, so Sam lets his focus go back to _Dean._ They all slip and slide on the iced-over dirt, making a lot of noise. This isn’t a stealth mission.

At another fork in the tunnel, the thread pulls him abruptly to the left, pulling harder than before.

Another curve, and they end up in some kind of cavern, big enough that Sam can stand up in.

“Sam!” comes the call. Sam swings his flashlight around and spots Dean waving, leaned up against the side of the wall next to another opening.

“Dean,” he breathes out, moving so quickly that he falls and slips across the ground to Dean instead of running to him like he planned. The minute he grabs at his shoulder, the thread snaps and the warmth around his bicep fades.

“Hey Sammy,” Dean says, grimacing, his face pale, “thing dropped me here, headed that’a way,” he gestures toward another opening across the cavern, arm flopping to the ground with the movement, “son-of-a-bitch got my leg.”

Sam nods, trying to avoid looking at the mangled mess of Dean’s thigh. He reaches a hand out to say the magic words, and then there’s a shout behind him. He whips his head around and spots the snake, beady, blue eyes glowing in the darkness.

“Watch it,” Asa says, the other four moving backward, backs to the Winchesters.

Sam moves in front of Dean, crouched, pickaxe at the ready. He moves one hand backward to Dean’s thigh, ignoring Dean’s wince and the blood that coats his fingers. He mouths _Castle Storage_ and feels the electric sparks travel down his arm. The crawling feeling of the tattoo ink shifting makes him shudder, and he figures they’ve got to be practically at empty when he moves his flashlight back to check Dean’s leg and finds no damage, despite the fact that he’d been nearly bleeding out a second ago.

That’s when the naga attacks. Claire shouts a warning and the hunters scatter, leaving the snake to dive into where they were just standing. Sam pushes himself backward, shielding Dean with his body as he presses them both against the wall, his scrambling legs just barely missing getting nabbed by the fangs. The snake pulls back and sways, and Sam knows it’s recalculating to stab them both through. He hears the sound of weapons firing, and sees Valarie light up her blowtorch, but knows it’ll be too late. His pickaxe is out of reach, dropped in favor of moving quickly, and Dean is shaking where his fingers grasp at Sam’s arm.

All he can do is fling a hand up and mutter, " _Aerosmith Concert_ ," out of sheer desperation.

The snake, already moving to snap at them, shudders to a stop, and Sam can hear crackling sounds. With an unholy noise, the snake jolts backward, flipping over itself and slamming its head into the wall. The whole cavern shakes, and several rocks crash down from the ceiling.

The screeching sound the thing is making increases in volume when Valarie gets close enough to hold the flaming blowtorch to its side and it thrashes some more.

Sam’s moving to head toward Claire, one hand tugging Dean up behind him when there’s a sudden, heavy, horrific pain at the back of his skull that knocks him to his knees.

He slumps there, and thinks maybe he hears Dean shouting, but blackness at the edge of his vision is creeping in and he can’t—he can’t—

* * *

Sam wakes up with his head in Dean’s lap. It’s a weird angle, and it takes him a second to adjust to it.

“Hey, there he is,” Dean says, moving his hand away from Sam’s forehead. Sam blinks rapidly and turns his head.

They’re back around the fire, an orange sunset lighting up the sky. Something about that reads wrong in his brain and he jolts, pushing himself upright.

“What happened—the snake—”

“Easy,” Dean says, putting one hand to his chest, “it’s dead. We all made it out.”

Sam glances around at the other hunters who are busy packing away tools or eating. He scans each of them, confirming Dean’s statement. Claire smirks at him and gives him nod when he looks her way.

“Claire got it in the eye while Valarie and Bucky torched the thing. Asa saved your ass, dragged us both outta there before the cave went crashing down.”

“What happened to me?” Sam asks, putting one hand up to the back of his head to find his hair matted with blood.

Dean snorts, “You got knocked out with a rock. These damn head injuries Sam, it’s like the universe is aiming for you.”

Under his breath, Sam mumbles, “Wouldn’t be the first time,” and Dean laughs.

“You used up all the juice taking care of my leg, so I had to wait for it to charge up. We had to drag you up out of the hole with a rope.”

Sam snorts, rubbing a hand across his face. He taps his hand against Dean’s, then presses against it for a moment, just breathing. He meets Dean’s gaze and gives his a wry smile that Dean returns, pushing his hand tight against Sam’s chest.

“Should’ve let me bring the grenade launcher,” Dean says.

* * *

On the trek back to the cars, Sam offers an apology to the other hunters—with one directed deliberately at the guy named Bucky. They all act cool with it, so Sam lets it go and reminds himself to get out of dodge if he sees these guys again, just in case.

They give Claire a ride back to Jody’s so she doesn’t have to take her stolen Subaru, and she’s asleep in the backseat when Sam glances at her.

“Hey,” Dean says, half a beat later, slapping his hand down on Sam’s knee, as they barrel down a deserted highway, “you good?”

Sam turns to look at Dean, soaking in the moving, breathing, alive-ness of him, glancing back and forth from the road to Sam’s face.

“Better, now that I know you’re not snake chow,” Sam finally settles on, his cheek twitching.

Dean snorts, “Right back atcha.”

Jim Croce plays quietly, and Sam turns to lean his head against the window. Dean clears his throat and he tiredly opens his eyes again. Without looking at him, Dean taps his hand against his opposite shoulder. It takes Sam a second to parse the meaning of the movement, but then Dean darts his eyes Sam’s way and mutters, “Gotta keep the rings charged, right?”

“Yeah,” Sam says, throat tight. He shifts position and leans over to rest his head on Dean’s shoulder.

* * *

Next, there’s a rough hunt in Summerfield, Louisiana with some changelings and… they don’t get there soon enough.

They lose two kids.

After, they get out of town, riding in silence. Sam stares out the window so he doesn’t have to look anywhere near Dean. It’s too dark out. All he ends up seeing is his reflection.

Dean drives too fast, even for him.

For a long, long part of the drive, the canned words Sam tries to force out get stuck in his throat, lumping together and choking him.

He manages to swallow, digging fingernails into the soft skin near his wrists.

“Can’t save everyone,” he finally forces out. The words hang in the air, greasy and slimy with so much history.

Sam turns, eyes moving to the windshield, but his focus on Dean in the corner of his vision.

Dean’s always got tension in him—tonight, it’s in his jaw, his hands.

Eyes flicker toward him, then back to the road. The worn yellow lines speed past them as they go by. Sam’s chest is tight, but for some reason he’s not thinking about the kids, the moms, the families. He’s thinking about the summer of 2000, when Dean and Dad carried around the guilt of the death of a little girl like it was a backpack full of rocks passed between them.

Sam’d never gotten the rocks of guilt for that one. He’d been there on the hunt. He should’ve felt it.

He never did.

He wonders why now. Why his thoughts skitter over the kids that died on this past hunt, why they did with the little girl (red hair, pigtails and freckles, neck twisted and broken, _someone’s_ fault).

When he’d been younger, more naive, he’d called it coping. He just took it well, _that’s all Dean, get off my back_. Now, he wonders. So many years with evil crawling through his veins, no wonder he’s never been compassionate enough or empathetic enough or kind enough or—

The car slows down so quickly that Sam has to brace against the dashboard to not slam into it. Dean pulls over, and without a word opens the door, climbs out, and slams it shut hard enough to rock the car. Sam hurries to follow, closing his door just in time to see Dean slam his fist into a fence post.

In the glare of the headlights, Dean’s just a silhouette. He uses his other hand next, rears back and slams it into the wood.

Sam just stares for a moment, shaking with too many things, and chokes on his words again, then again.

 _Three, four, five,_ Dean’s punches land, and Sam can’t do anything.

He stumbles forward, feels Dean’s name press up against his gritted teeth, but can’t force it out.

 _Six, seven_ , and Sam’s there, wrapping his arms around Dean from behind, pulling him back from the fence. Dean fights it, rears back and nearly catches Sam’s chin with his head, shoves them off balance and they go down into the gravel. Sam’s shoulder hits first, the back of his hand scrapes along the ground, and he tucks himself in, pulls Dean back, traps him in place with his legs.

Throughout it all, Dean’s doesn’t say a word, doesn’t cuss at him, doesn’t scream.

And Sam could number the times he’s seen Dean like this on his fingers. Dean, silent like this, with all the pressure in his jaw, is only familiar to him from deep, devastating, heart-rending times. Dean doesn’t go quiet for no reason.

Sam holds on, lets his pained breaths paint the air around them and holds tighter. Dean finally stops pulling away, and Sam’s fingernails catch on edge of his breast pocket, near his heart.

For a single startling moment, Sam remembers that they’re on the side of the road in Who-Knows-Where, Louisiana with a quarter tank of gas and the headlights lighting up the ground behind them. And then Sam remembers when Dean came back from Hell. When everything spun beneath his feet and all he’d wanted to do was crawl under his brother’s skin to make sure it was him in there, to press up against his beating heart and screaming soul and figure out for both of them that he was alive.

Dean makes some kind of noise, finally, a choked scream or muffled sob or something in-between, and Sam closes his eyes, holds tighter, and refuses to wince when Dean’s hands scrape along the backs of Sam’s arms pressing in, biting in.

And in the grand scheme of the universe, they aren’t even there for a blink, for a moment, for any recognizable grand time, but there, they live for ages. Sam, feeling like he’d bent himself in two to make room for Dean, to scrape away the guilt and anger and unfairness of the world.

Somewhere between them, there’s tears. Sam’s belt buckle digging into Dean’s back. A rip in Sam’s shirt from the fight.

And they live and die in that breathing moment.

* * *

Back at the bunker, Sam buries himself in the books from the secret hallway and Dean comes back from the store with enough beer to stock an army.

Jody calls a couple of times, and Sam can tell that even she knows something’s wrong.

They usually don’t let cases get under their skin like that, but it came too close to other things, other stressors, and well . . . He guesses they’re due for a breakdown.

At some point, Sam manages to drag himself to the kitchen for food. He wavers over making Dean some, and then decides just to do it. If Dean doesn’t want it, Sam’ll choke it down.

He shows up in the newly-dubbed “Dean-Cave” with a stack of grilled cheese and a book on Etruscan under his arm. Dean’s lying on the couch, a few beer bottles clustered on the coffee table in front of him.

Sam swallows, glancing up to the tv where Star Trek is playing, and moves further into the room. Dean looks his way, and Sam sets the plate down on the table.

“Lunch,” he says, even though it’s something like four in the morning.

Dean grunts at him and reaches out to grab one of the sandwiches.

Sam frowns, fiddling with the bottom of his shirt, before he makes his decision and moves to push Dean’s feet off the couch.

“Hey,” Dean complains. Sam ignores him, plopping down on the empty cushion and grabbing his own grilled cheese. He kicks his legs up on the coffee table and slouches into the corner of the couch, opening his book. After a moment, he pats his leg a couple of times, and Dean hesitantly brings his legs up to rest on Sam’s lap, his socked feet pressing into the couch arm.

Sam finds his place on the page and chews his sandwich, and Dean watches _The Enterprise_ discover a new planet.

* * *

The call comes the next day, both of them at work in the library. Dean picks up his phone, waving it at Sam.

“Jody,” he says, moving to put the phone to his ear. Sam nods and finishes transferring the rest of a reference card to his online database.

“Hey Jody,” Dean says by way of greeting, “how’s it going?”

Sam shuffles the index cards around and goes to start a new entry when Dean speaks again, rising to his feet.

“What the hell have you done with Jody?” he growls, staring right at Sam who drops the cards and stands up too, leaning over to hear the conversation, panic spiking through his chest.

Dean switches to speaker, breathing heavily.

“Oh, you know,” an unfamiliar male voice says, “she’s a bit . . . tied up at the moment. Those girls of hers too.” He tuts, “You know, it would be just too bad if _something_ were to happen to them.”

“If you touch them,” Dean grinds out, “If you _hurt_ a single hair on their heads, I _will_ _end you.”_

The voice chuckles, “Well, I’d hurry to get here then, times a’ticking, Dean Winchester. Watertown by tomorrow at noon, or I think I’ll let my friends drain their blood.”

Dean’s phone screen switches to a blinking clock, telling him how long the call lasted, and Sam swallows, hard.

Their eyes meet and Sam cements his jaw in place, nodding at Dean.

They’re on the road ten minutes later, only slowing down when they pass the speed trap on their way out of town.

* * *

They talk strategy the whole way there, hashing out the what-ifs (which don’t include a single scenario where the girls aren’t alright). They pull into a library parking lot and grab their gear.

There’s no time to waste—Sam’s got thirty probable locations where they could be holding three dangerous, tough women, and there’s only two Winchesters around to search them.

Before they split up, Sam grabs Dean in a hug, and they squeeze each other tight, leaning back away from each other and moving in opposite directions, Dean getting back in the car, slinging his supplies into Sam’s empty seat and roaring out of the parking lot while Sam dodges security cameras and jumps the fence of the construction site next to the library.

There’s nothing there but a feral cat and a few tarps that startle Sam when the wind blows through.

He moves on, jogging down the street, both thankful for and wary of the streetlamps that keep him from tripping over the cracks in the sidewalk or the curb.

An abandoned store, a city-owned building that had seen better days, a foreclosed house that hadn’t been on his original list. Sam starts running from place to place, feeling the ticking of the clock pounding in his head.

He sprints down a back road, backpack banging against his spine with every step.

Big gray building, sold to a contractor a month back and standing empty. Sam creeps around the back and whispers _Duluth_ when he finds a lock on the door. It clicks open and Sam pushes his way inside, Taurus at the ready. He glances around the lobby area, then moves to glance down the hallway.

An unseen attacker tackles him to the ground, wrestling his gun away. One more dog piles on top, springing from his right. Sam shouts in alarm and another person appears to slap his hand over Sam’s mouth and wrap an arm around his neck. Sam chokes on it and catches the glint of needle-teeth in the mouth of the one holding his legs down. Sam scrambles to pull the arm around his neck away, but black spots appear in his vision. His heart pounds in his ears and he scratches his hand down the side of his attacker’s face.

He loses consciousness sometime after that.

* * *

It’s a process to make his eyes open. He’s dizzy and kind of feels like puking.

His shoulders hurt.

Sam comes to the realization that his arms are above his head and the darkness he’s seeing isn’t a problem with his vision. He tugs at the chains tying his hands up and hears them jangle above him. He tries to get his feet under him and scrapes his bare toes against the floor. They barely reach, and some distant part of him is vaguely impressed that whoever rigged this up was able to do that—he’s too tall for so many things, closets and certain torture devices being some of them.

He manages to spread his legs out a bit, change how his toes are bearing the weight, and get one foot up to explore the world around him. There’s walls on three sides, terrifyingly close, and a few holes in the wall that Sam’s toes snag on. The door is slick, knob round and slippery under his toes, and when Sam kicks at it, it barely rattles.

After that move, he has to catch his balance again, trying to lean against the wall for support, but they’re all just a _touch_ too far away.

He kind of feels like puking, and his head pounds at him incessantly. He takes stock. No more backpack, and his jacket and shoes are gone, but he’s still got his overshirt and pants, so he’s calling it a win. He can still feel the leather of his necklace around his neck, and the bump tugging at his undershirt.

He thinks about Dean. Then a thought bursts through the fog in his brain, and he whispers, “ _Duluth_.”

Overhead, the manacles around his wrists spring open, and Sam goes crashing to the ground, back scraping against the back wall. He holds his breath, waiting for something to happen outside the closet door, but nothing does. Leaning his ear against the door, he listens. He doesn’t hear any movement, so he places his hand over the handle and breathes out, “Duluth,” again. It clicks, and Sam opens the door.

He scans the hallway outside, lit with dim yellow bulbs. It screams _creepy_ , and Sam almost wants to roll his eyes, except he thinks that might _really_ make him chuck his lunch.

Moving quickly, he closes the door behind him, pressing up against the wall as he picks a direction. He feels unsteady and lost, and his heart pounds in his chest.

 _Dean,_ he thinks, and sucks in a heavy breath.

There’s not many ways to choose from, when he reaches the end of the hallway, he can pick right or left. There’s a weird glow to his right, so Sam follows that. He peers around the corner and spots movement. A guy, pacing back and forth at the bottom of a staircase. Sam flattens himself back against the wall. Chances are, the guy’s some kind of monster. He’s got to play this right. He turns around, heading back. He tries the other turn and gets halfway down it when he hears shouting behind him. He picks up the pace, and when he hears hurried footsteps headed toward him, he tries his luck, wiggling the knob of a door. It opens, and Sam rushes inside, pushing the door shut.

It’s some kind of office space, desks and filing cabinets. Sam ducks under one, and pulls open the drawers, slowly. Empty.

He needs a weapon, he needs to take out the guards, and he needs to get out of here.

The door opens, and Sam holds his breath.

“Sam?” It’s whispered so quietly that Sam has to strain to hear it, but it’s blessedly familiar.

He rolls out from under the desk and peers around it, “Jody?” He whispers back.

Jody’s pushed her back to the door, and looks vaguely startled by Sam’s appearance, before her face softens and she smiles a relieved grin.

“Thank God,” she says, “I heard them shouting about you, but I wasn’t sure—”

Sam interrupts, “Jody, where’s Claire and Alex?”

“They managed to get away,” Jody says, “I told them to go get help. Where’s Dean?”

Shrugging, Sam leans over another desk and opens the drawers, “Last I knew, he was searching the other side of town. I didn’t check in, so he’ll be heading my way, if he hasn’t already.”

Jody nods, chest heaving. There’s a sudden ruckus outside the door, and they share an alarmed look.

“There’s a bunch of vampires and werewolves, I think,” Jody breathes out when Sam carefully makes his way closer to her, bracing for the moment the door rattles under an outside hand. Sam nods, glancing around the room for any hint of something he can use as a weapon. He turns to ask Jody, and just as she turns, the light hits her eyes.

They shine, and Sam gasps in a breath, launching himself backward. Not-Jody startles at his reaction and then grins, yanking open the door.

“Well,” she says, as three burly, toothy men barrel into the room, “That was fun while it lasted. Grab him, we’ll put him with his brother.”

The lackeys head toward Sam, who wavers a bit from his quick movements, head spinning. He dodges the first swipe, right into another man’s fist. He feels his lip split, and tries to push back, but the third guy jumped a desk and got around him. Sam tries to duck, aiming a punch at the leftmost attacker. He feels it hit, and then something heavy crashes down on his head.

Sam loses his balance, and he practically falls into his attackers arms. They pull him upright and pin his arms back, dragging him out of the room. Sam struggles, kicking out, but they just snarl at him and the other guy grabs his ankles so he can’t do anything. They pass the closet Sam was in before and wind up in another room. Sam’s head is spinning, but he hears Dean’s startled, “Sam,” just fine.

“Lock him up,” Fake-Jody says, popping her neck. Sam’s thrown to the ground, next to Dean, who growls at the monsters, and a meaty hand holds him by his throat as his arms are chained up.

“Good,” Fake-Jody says, and the men back off. With them gone, Sam can see Jody, Claire, and Alex across the room, arms chained up behind them.

When Sam gets enough control over his body, he slants his eyes to the side.

“Sammy,” Dean says, “you good?” Dean’s got nasty bruising on his face, and a scrape on his cheek. They’re close enough to brush shoulders.

Sam does his best to nod, pushing himself into a more upright position. He glances around the room, and then mouths, “Duluth.”

He rattles his chains, but there’s no heat in his arm, no sparking electricity. He presses tighter against Dean, aching for time.

“Oh, Sam is fine,” the shifter says, sighing “we may have lied a bit. So, we didn’t kill Sam right away,” she rolls her eyes, “fine. We’re going to. But not yet. It was fun hearing all of those _nasty_ little threats though,” she says, smiling sarcastically, “wouldn’t you all agree?” She turns to look at her accomplices, who all snort and nod.

“Go get the others,” she says, “I think they’ll want to see _this_.” One monster exits the room.

“You know,” she continues, “a lot of people said it couldn’t be done. ‘Oh, you’ll never live long enough to kill the Winchesters,’” she says, voice raised in a false high-pitch, “‘they’re too good for that,’” the shifter drops her eyebrows, settling back into Jody’s regular tone, “guess they were wrong.” She shrugs, smiling disturbingly.

“Screw you,” Dean growls, pulling at his chains.

Six more people crowd into the room, and a woman holds out a knife. The shifter takes it, twirls it in her hand.

The shifter laughs, drawn out. Grins in a way Sam’s never seen Jody grin.

“You know, I thought we’d have a harder time choosing which Winchester to kill,” she points between them, “and which one we should torture by making him watch his brother die.”

Dean’s shoulder is steady against Sam’s, but he can see how shaky Dean’s hands are.

“But I think we’ve got the answer, don’t you?” She turns to the crowd, and Sam sees tears on Claire’s face.

There’s a scattered nodding, accompanied by a few, “Yeah,”s.

Fake-Jody turns back around and rolls her shoulders, “Be a dear,” she says, gesturing to one of the watching monsters, “Grab Dean for me, won’t you?”

“NO,” Sam shouts, the word dragged from his throat as he strains against the chains, “Stay away from him!”

One of the massive men from before steps forward, and Sam keeps pulling at his chains. Once the guy gets close enough, Dean kicks out, and Sam follows suit.

A few more monsters step forward, laughing, and pin their legs to the ground. The original guy reaches behind Dean, and Sam lashes out, trying to bite at him. A hand gets slapped over his mouth, holding his jaw shut, and it’s no use, Dean’s chains come free of the wall, and the guy drags him forward, forcing him down on his knees.

“Hmm,” Fake-Jody says, studying the man in front of her, “I’m not doing this out of spite, you know.” She says, grabbing at Dean’s face, tilting it back and forth. Dean spits at her, head held high. She grimaces, turning away for a moment to wipe the spit off her face.

“It’s more of an . . . eradication. It’s how you take care of the starving mountain lion that lives in your backyard,” she continues, “almost . . . Impersonal.”

“Hey bitch,” Claire says, pulling against her own chains, “if it’s so impersonal, get me out of these and take me on for real.”

Fake-Jody ignores her and shakes her head.

Sam tries to shake off the hand on his mouth, shouting _Duluth, Duluth,_ in his head. The fingers only dig in harder.

“It’s been fun hunting you down for all this time,” the shifter says, “thanks for the challenge.”

“If you’re going to do it, just do it,” Dean states, shoulders tensed, “stop delaying.”

“Gladly,” the shifter says.

Sam can’t see Dean’s eyes, but he can see the knife. The way it glints under the naked bulb, the sharp edge of it.

He sees how it moves, watches as it pierces through Dean. In. Out.

He sees the blood.

He sees how Dean’s body drops.

But he doesn’t see Dean’s eyes.

He’s screaming and he knows it. Some combination of Dean’s name and a promise of death and murder.

His shoulders ache. He pulls harder.

For a second, he’s sure that he was imagining it all, because it’s not Dean’s chest that the knife stabbed through, it was _his,_ he can feel the blade that entered Dean in his own heart, in his own body, in his soul.

The real Jody, the one across from him, is yelling something. The shifter is grinning, and the other monsters are smirking.

Sam’s world burns.

Somehow, he’s lose. His shoulders are screaming, the right in particular. As he scrambles for Dean’s body, dragging the chain and bar behind him, he realizes he can’t use it. Dislocated. Hurts less than his chest. Who cares? Dean’s lying here, blood oozing, eyes wide open, and now he can see them, and it’s just like—

“Get him back on the wall!” the shifter is screeching, wailing. Something grabs at him, and he bites, snarls. He tastes blood and hears more yelling. They’re not taking him away. Dean’s in his lap, and he’s not alive, Sam can feel it, everything that’s wrong with the world is in his lap, because Dean’s not here, he’s dead.

* * *

It takes him a long time to realize that he’s choking on his own screams. He still doesn’t stop, pulling in just enough breath to try and replicate the feeling in his soul.

“Don’t bother with chaining him up,” the shifter says at some point when Sam can’t yell any more and has to settle for silent sobs as he clutches Dean’s body against his own.

It always hurts. It hurts in his nightmares, in his intrusive thoughts. It hurt every single damn time in Broward County, it hurt when the hellhounds came, when Metatron did this exact same thing. But this time it’s somehow compounded. Sam can feel every point of his soul that used to be connected to Dean, and it’s like they’re bleeding stumps. Nothing makes sense, his world is in shambles and Dean is—

He thinks about M&Ms. Trails of them, bags in the car. Dad’s stories about how medics in the field would use them when they couldn’t do anything else—placebo pills. He wants Dean to open his eyes and offer him M&Ms. Or talk about anything. Dumb things. Dean things.

When he can look up through the tears, the monsters are gone. He finally realizes that Jody—real Jody—is calling his name. He ignores her. Can’t turn to look. Can’t bring himself to.

His arm hurts.

His soul is ripped and rotten and torn to shreds and Dean is—

Gone.

* * *

“Castle Storage,” Sam says. He waits. Repeats it, “Castle Storage.”

Someone’s crying.

“Duluth,” Sam tells Dean. Not Dean’s body, cold. But Dean. The Dean that’s gone. “Duluth.”

“Henly,” He says, tracing his fingers over the rip in Dean’s shirt. Nothing happens.

“Texas.” And he hurts.

“Aerosmith concert, popcorn needle, guiness.”

He’s whispering, his throat trying to give out on him.

“Paulina Tracee. Bismarck.”

Dean still has the ring on his finger. Never did stop wearing it after the tattoos. Sam’s is around his neck. When he leans in, just a bit, it dangles and touches Dean’s chest. They’re not good at letting go of certain things. Weren’t good at letting go.

“Nineteen-ninety-nine, Mr. Nathan, Vonnegut.”

The tattoo on his arm isn’t comfortably warm like he’s gotten used to it being.

(But his ring isn’t in its neutral position. It’s three shifts in. There’s still something stored there. There has to be. There _has_ to be.)

“Bobby’s knife collection, summer dad left us there.”

He doesn’t taste hope, but he needs it to be there. _No limits_ was what Dean had said, the day they figured out _Vonnegut_. It never seemed like there were limits.

“Castiel. Gabriel.”

Nothing happens, but Jody says, “Sam? Sam?”

“Broward County,” Sam says, “Mark of Cain.”

He’d take Dean as a demon over Dean being dead any day of the week.

He’d take all those Tuesdays again over Dean being dead.

“Walt and Roy. Zachariah.”

It’s a kind of prayer, he supposes.

So he breathes in a sob and exhales, “Cold Oak.”

And something hurts worse. A single part of his writing soul lights up in greater pain.

So Sam nearly screams and starts chanting, “Cold Oak, Cold Oak, Cold Oak.”

And somehow he descends into greater agony.

“C’mon Dean, c’mon. Please. Please God. Please Dean. Dean, c’mon, I can’t do this alone, remember? I’m supposed to—I’m supposed to—” He chokes again, tightens his hold on Dean.

“Pain-in-the-ass little brother, right? Driver picks—driver picks the music Dean, you don’t want me having the Impala again, right?”

Another part of his soul in agony. He wants to scream, wants to rip out his hair.

“Fluff Marshmallow Mix. Dean, Dean, please.”

And he can’t talk anymore, his throat is raw and his voice is wavering, so he just lets his soul do the screaming for him.

He thinks about late nights when Dean and he would wait for Dad to come back. He thinks about finding the Bunker, the dumbass robe. He thinks about faith healers and cannibals and clowns. He thinks about cassette tapes and piggyback rides. He thinks about souls and broken parts and stone number one. He thinks about sleeping in the Impala, and two-o’clock in the morning, when Dean would crawl into his bed and let Sam be the one to sling his arm around him and press his forehead against Dean’s spine. He thinks about Lucifer pretending to be him, _Dean_ , at first, but slowly realising it was the one illusion Sam could see through. He thinks about Dean finding him in heaven, in a fuzzy memory, because Sam couldn’t picture Dean wanting to have him with him in his heaven.

He thinks about how everything about them is so rough-edged without the other. He thinks about threads tugging.

And his ring glows.

Nothing big like he’s used to when they do the big stunts. Just the light glow of lock-picking, symbol searching, and brother-finding.

Dean breathes.

And Sam sees the moment his soul settles back into place.

“Dean?”

He didn’t see Dean’s eyes when he died, but he sees them when he opens them back up.

“Hey-a Sammy.”


	4. Courage

Outside the locked room, there’s shouting, then the sound of gunfire. Sam looks up from where he’s got a hand over the girls’ chains to share an alarmed look at Dean, who’s glassy eyed and shaking.

“Duluth,” Sam mutters, squeezing Dean’s hand even tighter in his own.

It takes a moment, energy flowing in-between their hands and down Sam’s arm. The locks click open, one by one. 

Jody stands up and gets one arm around both of them. Claire nudges her shoulder against Sam’s, her jaw wobbling. Alex shudders and nods when Sam looks at her over Jody’s shoulder. They move out of the hug, and Sam and Dean drop hands. Sam wobbles in place, the horrific exhaustion that washed over him after Dean started breathing getting worse with every passing moment. 

There’s crashing. Sam and Dean move to the door, and the girls pick up their chains for lack of better weapons. The Winchesters share a look, each taking a side of the doorframe, hands clenched in fists. 

The second the door opens, Sam’s ready, twisting to aim.

“Whoa! Whoa,” Asa-from-the-snake-thing says, jumping back, pointing his gun down.

Sam stumbles, and behind him, Dean asks, “Asa?”

“Yeah, that’s the name, don’t wear it out,” he says, holding one hand out in a surrendering gesture. 

“Asa?” Jody says from behind them. Sam and Dean move out of the way so Asa can enter, and Jody smiles, relieved.

“Hey,” Asa says, smiling back, “got your message.”

Sam and Dean share a look over Asa’s head, twitching heads and raising eyebrows. They both glance over at Claire and gesture toward Asa and Jody, who are talking about _I didn’t think you got it, oh I got it, just took a while to find you_. Claire rolls her eyes and wraps an arm around Alex, who looks a little shell-shocked. 

Looking back at each other, they shrug at the same time.

A voice from outside the room calls, “Asa!” 

Asa turns around, shouting back, “In here, I found ‘em!”

Several people enter the room—only one face is familiar, Valerie, who gives a small wave at Sam and Dean. There’s a general exchange of greetings and reporting that everything they can find is dead, and Sam wavers.

His vision goes spotty, and he reaches out a hand to plant against the wall for balance. Dean’s there in a second, pulling Sam’s arm over his shoulder.

“Whoa, easy there, Sammy.”

Sam grunts, shifting his weight. 

He kind of zones out during the trip out of the building, refocusing his gaze only when the Impala comes into view. There’s several other cars parked haphazardly next to it, and the other hunters are trailing after them, Jody and the girls included. 

They reach the Impala and Sam reaches out a hand to run his hand over her hood and that’s the breaking point.

He just kind of collapses, bringing Dean along with him with a yelp. His back ends up against the Impala, and he shakes, bending his knees in to huddle. He’s exhausted—soul tired, he thinks—his head is pounding, and Dean is _here_ , he’s _fine_.

Sam didn’t know he had more tears in him, but apparently he does, because he does everything _but_ burst into tears. 

“Okay, okay,” Dean says, “we’re doing this here, okay.”

Sam blindly reaches out and ends up grabbing at the back of Dean’s head. Out of some kind of desperation and left-over grief, leans over, planting a kiss on Dean’s temple and then pressing his head into Dean’s shoulder, shuddering. 

Over his ugly, un-Winchesterian, hitching breaths, he hears scattered chatter. He tries to care and can’t bring himself to. The tears slow after a minute, and he can feel how Dean’s shaking against him, and pulls back enough to see that there’s a couple of shiny tear marks that disappear into Dean’s 5 o’clock shadow. 

Dean sort-of smirks at him, and Sam tries to smile back. He pulls away, just a bit, so that he can lean against the Impala and thunk his head against it. 

Over the top of the building, the sun is rising. Sam closes his eyes for a second, wiping at his face, and hears a muffled thump next to him. He glances to the side and sees Claire and Alex, slumping back against the car too.

“You guys alright?” Sam manages to ask, sniffing grossly and bringing up his shoulder to wipe his nose on his sleeve. 

Claire kind of laughs, and shrugs, “We will be, I guess.”

“S’all you can be,” Dean huffs, leaning his weight on Sam. 

“So, is this like . . . everyday stuff for you guys?” Claire asks.

Sam and Dean snort at the same time, and Sam jokes weakly, “Only on Tuesdays.”

“Yeah,” Dean says, “we save Wednesdays for murderous federal agents instead.”

When Sam glances around, a few hunters quickly look away, and he tries to feel embarrassed, but he doesn’t have the energy. He closes his eyes, just for a moment, and then rouses blearily when Dean moves his shoulder away. 

“C’mon Sam,” Dean says, pushing himself to his feet with a wince, “you can sleep off burning-out your soul in the car.”

“Didn’t burn-out my soul,” Sam grumbles, grabbing the hand Dean offers and pulling himself up.

“Sure,” Dean says, rolling his eyes, “You do know I skimmed through the book too, right?”

Sam had suspected that Dean had done that exact same thing when the soul-mate book went missing from his desk for a few days and then mysteriously turned back up. He just shrugs. 

“That reminds me,” Dean says, “Billie’s pissed at us. Again.”

“When is she not?” Sam questions dryly, wincing as his head pounds. Dean frowns at him and then places a hand on his forehead.

“Castle Storage,” Dean says, and bright sparks dance down his arm, “Good point.”

“Who’s Billie?” Jody asks, walking closer, accompanied by Asa. They both look a little apprehensive.

Dean pulls his hand away and squints his eyes at Sam, who shrugs his shoulders.

“Our reaper,” Dean says, casually picking up their bags from where he’d dropped them when Sam went down.

“Your . . . reaper,” Asa repeats, blinking. 

Sam shrugs again, “She’s never very happy with us.”

“Ye-eah,” Jody says, pausing for a long moment before shaking her head, “Are you guys heading out?”

“That’s the plan,” Dean says, “Need any help with clean-up?” He’s busy stuffing his feet into his boots and Sam moves to grab his own. Their socks have gone missing. If that’s their greatest loss, Sam is elated. 

“No offense,” Asa says, “But I think it would be more helpful if you _didn’t_ help. Everyone wants to talk to you,” he gestures around at the seven-or-so other people around, “I’d get out while you still can.”

Sam tugs his mouth up in a smile and then accepts Jody’s hug when she walks closer. 

“No hunting for at least a week,” Jody says, stepping back to hug Dean as well, “Got it?”

“Yes ma’am,” Dean says, and Sam nods. Jody steps back and heaves a heavy sigh. 

Dean brusquely moves to grab Claire in a side-hug as well. He grabs Alex’s shoulder gently as he passes by her to walk around to the driver’s side. Sam waves awkwardly, swaying on his feet as he opens the passenger door.

The sun is in their eyes when they start heading down the street and Dean reaches over to squeeze Sam’s knee.

Sam slumps over, resting his head on Dean’s shoulder as the Allman Brothers start singing about rambling on. 

* * *

Back at the bunker, they split up for showers and then reconvene in Sam’s room without a single word between them. Dean flips on the tv, volume low, and turns out the light. Sam sits next to him and pulls the covers over his legs, leaning over. 

Dean interweaves their fingers when Sam’s close to asleep, but he’s only really just closing his eyes against the glare of the TV. Dean’s strange about things like this, at times like this, so he just twitches his fingers a bit and settles into it. Dean doesn’t do anything beside breath for a long time, and then his thumb brushes along Sam’s finger, and he keeps it up, just rubbing gently. Sam risks a peek and Dean’s got his eyes on the TV, the movement of his hand almost absent-minded. 

Sam settles in and relaxes, feeling his tattoo and the ring hanging on his chest start to warm. 

**Author's Note:**

> did ya' make it all the way through that? bless your freaking soul my friends.
> 
> Another round of applause for the IN-FREAKING-CREDIBLE art quickreaver created for this fic. Despite her busy schedule, she worked with me and my procrastination and messy writing. Don't forget to check out that art [HERE](http://quickreaver.tumblr.com/post/184214370209/art-for-this-years-gencestbang-where-i-got-to).
> 
> if ur about that gen life, you could come check out my sideblog [@gen-spn](http://gen-spn.tumblr.com) over on tumblr, or pop a message by me on my main blob [@sprinkles888](http://sprinkles888.tumblr.com).
> 
> don't forget to check out all the other awesome gcb works in [ the collection ](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/GencestBang) or on the [ tumblr blog](https://gencestbang.tumblr.com). 
> 
> Your views, kudos, bookmarks, and comments are immensely appreciated 😘


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